UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


IN  MEMORIAM 
S.  L.  MILLARD  ROSENBERG 


RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH 


AND 


OTHER  ESSAYS 


BY 


CHEESMAN    A.  HERRICK 


JOHN  JOSEPH  McVEY 
PHILADELPHIA 


COPYRIGHT,  1911 
CHEESMAN  A.  HERRICK 


UA 

i\o 

H43r 


TEACHER    COUNSELOR    FRIEND 

CHARLES     DeQARMO 

Strong  of  Mind         Generous  of  Heart         Noble  of  Purpose 


PREFACE. 

THE  following  essays  are  the  outgrowth  of  occa- 
sional addresses  and  three  magazine  articles.  All 
are  educational  in  character.  "  Reclaiming  a  Com- 
monwealth "  appeared  first  in  The  Outlook,  and  "  The 
Keystone  of  Power  "  in  The  Metropolitan  Magazine. 
Both,  however,  have  been  rewritten  and  considerably 
enlarged.  Certain  observations  based  on  a  visit  to 
European  schools  have  been  incorporated  in  the  essay 
last  named.  Taken  together  they  constitute  a  discus- 
sion of  some  important  phases  of  educational  ten- 
dencies and  of  present-day  interests. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  prepare  a  treatise. 
Though  considerable  investigation  has  been  neces- 
sary for  some  of  these  studies,  the  effort  has  been  to 
avoid  the  effect  of  a  "  contribution."  If  the  mode  of 
treatment  has  made  the  essays  less  scientific  it  has  pos- 
sibly made  them  more  readable.  Should  the  book 
bring  to  those  into  whose  hands  it  falls  pleasure  at  all 
comparable  to  the  pleasure  that  has  come  from  its 
preparation  the  author  will  be  highly  gratified. 

The  writer  is  pleased  to  acknowledge  his  indebted- 
ness to  Professor  William  H.  Mearns  for  his  sugges- 
tions on  several  of  the  essays  in  manuscript,  to  Mr. 
Patterson  Du  Bois  for  a  careful  reading  of  all  the 
manuscript  and  the  proof,  and  to  Principal  W.  D. 


vi  PREFACE. 

Lewis  for  his  reading  of  the  proof.  Lucien  Hugh 
Alexander,  Esq.,  was  good  enough  to  supply  much  of 
the  material  for  the  essay  on  "  Professional  Ethics  " 
and  to  read  in  manuscript  this  essay  and  the  related 
one  on  "A  New  Commercialism."  If  the  book  has 
escaped  errors  and  is  free  from  faulty  presentation  it 
is  due  to  the  many  helpful  suggestions  of  these  friends. 

C.  A.  H. 

Girard  College. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH i 

EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER 17 

OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION 47 

SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT 57 

UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION 79 

THE  NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS 96 

PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS        106 

A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM •  .  123 

SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS 140 

OLD  AGE  PENSIONS .       .  164 

RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS  . 185 


I. 

RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH. 

NORTH  CAROLINA  was  long  considered  the  standing 
example  of  illiteracy  and  educational  inefficiency.  In  a 
scientific  study  of  education  as  late  as  1900  she  was 
placed  with  the  lowest  expenditure  per  capita  for 
schools,  and  the  lowest  productive  power  per  capita, 
A  recent  Governor  of  the  State,  and  a  group  of  men 
with  whom  he  labored,  proclaimed  to  the  people  of 
North  Carolina  from  the  tide-water  regions  to  the 
mountain  fastnesses,  that  theirs  was  the  poorest  State 
in  the  Union  in  dollars  and  cents,  and  the  most  illit- 
erate save  one. 

Knowledge  of  the  North  State's  part  in  the  Civil 
War  is  necessary  to  understand  her  subsequent  educa- 
tional history.  Attendance  upon  a  State  reunion  of 
Confederate  veterans  at  Greensboro  taught  a  little 
of  how  great  had  been  her  sacrifice,  how  complete 
her  subjugation.  Broken  and  aged  men,  the  shadow 
of  their  former  selves, *and  of  the  armies  in  which  they 
served,^  wore  in  their  hats  what  they  called  a  brag 
feather  of  the  Tar  Heels  Brigade  which  recited  their 
record,  "  First  at  Bethel,  Foremost  at  Gettysburg, 
Furthest  at  Chickamauga,  and  Last  at  Appomat- 
tox."  North  Carolina,  it  should  be  further  said,  fur- 
nished largely  in  excess  of  her  proportion  of  the  Con- 


2  RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH. 

federate  army;  from  a  war  population  of  141,000  she 
sent  to  the  field  127,000,  and  of  these  40,000  were  lost. 

But  the  loss  of  men  was  not  all;  infinitely  greater 
were  the  wasted  wealth  and  the  crushed  spirits  of  a 
people  proud  and  brave.  When  the  war  was  over,  the 
special  fund  for  the  support  of  schools  was  gone,  and 
the  school-houses  were  deserted.  The  work  of  Calvin 
Wiley,  former  State  Superintendent  of  Schools,  closed 
with  Sherman's  occupation  of  Raleigh.  To  Sherman 
war  meant  hell ;  to  North  Carolina  it  meant  illiteracy. 

When  the  war  closed  the  University  of  North  Caro- 
lina was  without  occupation.  School  organization  and 
school  support  had  disappeared.  Hopeless  indeed  was 
the  outlook;  material  needs  were  considered  first.  It 
was  ten  years  before  the  State  University  reopened  her 
doors ;  but  at  once  she  began  to  work  mightily  for  the 
educational  renaissance  of  the  State.  In  the  first  three 
classes  were  the  recent  Governor,  Charles  B.  Aycock, 
on  fire  with  educational  enthusiasm ;  the  present  pro- 
gressive State  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction, 
James  Y.  Joyner,  and  Edwin  A.  Alderman,  President 
successively  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina,  Tu- 
lane  University,  and  the  University  of  Virginia,  bril- 
liant as  an  orator,  and  whose  addresses  present  with 
convincing  force  that  education  of  the  whole  people  is 
the  supreme  need  of  a  democracy.  To  these  should 
be  added  the  not  less  important  work  of  another  alum- 
nus, the  late  Charles  D.  Mclver,  in  the  establishment 
of  industrial  training  and  the  training  of  teachers, 
and  as  Secretary  of  the  Southern  Educational  Board. 


RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH.  3 

University  of  North  Carolina  men,  headed  by  Alder- 
man and  Mclver,  were  leaders  in  the  summer  institute 
movement,  and  graduates  of  this  institution  have  as- 
sumed the  superintendencies  in  more  than  one-half  of 
the  graded  schools  of  the  State.  A  considerable  pro- 
portion of  the  county  superintendents  of  schools  are 
also  from  the  State  University.  Any  institution  of  the 
world  might  well  be  proud  of  the  work  of  the  younger 
as  well  as  the  older  alumni  of  the  University  of  North 
Carolina.  Let  it  be  said  to  her  credit  that  with  her 
University,  North  Carolina  has  been  working  out  her 
own  educational  salvation ;  and  already  her  influence 
has  extended  throughout  the  South  and  to  the  nation 
at  large.  One,  writing  from  Boston  in  the  Educa- 
tional Review  for  December,  1907,  tells  that  it  is  to 
the  "  illiterate  "  Southern  state  of  North  Carolina  that 
we  must  go  to  find  educational  methods  in  practice 
which  are  superior  to  those  being  practiced  in  the 
North.  North  Carolina  is  believed  by  this  writer  to 
have  reached  high  ideals  in  several  directions :  she  has 
never  permitted  sectarianism  to  become  an  issue  in  the 
control  of  her  schools ;  North  Carolina  has  centralized 
her  education,  giving  economy  and  efficiency  of  ad- 
ministration ;  this  State  is  leading  in  improved  archi- 
tecture for  rural  schools;  and,  finally,  North  Carolina 
is  believed  to  point  useful  lessons  in  wise  and  safe 
educational  experimentation. 

The  educational  abyss  from  which  the  State  has 
arisen  is  shown  by  the  testimony  of  the  Hon.  John  C. 
Scarborough,  who  became  State  Superintendent  of 


4  RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH. 

Schools  in  1877.  There  were  then  no  institutions  for 
the  training  of  teachers,  no  provisions  for  teachers' 
institutes,  and  the  Legislature,  lest  the  Board  of  Edu- 
cation should  .exercise  its  general  powers,  had  by  law 
prohibited  it  from  securing  a  clerk  for  the  State  Super- 
intendent, or  allowing  him  any  money  for  traveling 
expenses. 

Much  preliminary  work  had  been  done,  but  down 
to  1900  progress  was  slight.  A  new  qualification  for 
electors  was  to  be  fixed  in  that  year,  and  the  man  for 
the  occasion  was  the  standard-bearer  of  the  majority 
party,  Charles  B.  Aycock.  Intelligence  was  the  watch- 
word of  the  campaign ;  a  provision  before  the  people 
was  that  no  one,  white  or  black,  coming  of  age  after 
1908  should  be  allowed  to  vote  unless  he  could  read 
and  write. 

"Adopt  this  provision,"  said  Aycock,  "  and  if  I  am 
elected  Governor  it  will  be  my  chief  aim  to  give  every 
child  in  North  Carolina  the  opportunities  for  an  edu- 
cation." The  wisdom  of  universal  education  was  most 
convincingly  presented,  and  partisan  issues  were 
largely  ignored.  "  If  you  do  not  want  more  atten- 
tion to  education,"  said-  the  frank  and  fearless  candi- 
date, "don't  vote  for  me."  Aycock  himself  made  one 
hundred  and  eight  speeches  in  that  campaign,  and  his 
work  was  supplemented  by  others  who  took  the  key- 
note from  their  leader.  The  pledges  of  the  candidate 
were  widely  printed  in  the  press,  but  he  was  not  con- 
tent with  this,  and  had  his  platform  struck  off  in 
circulars  and  these  distributed.  As  might  have  been 


RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH.  5 

expected,  Aycock  was  chosen  by  a  handsome  majority, 
and,  best  of  all,  he  was  as  good  as  his  word.  "  Re- 
deeming the  pledges  "  he  termed  his  action.  In  season 
and  out  he  preached  the  gospel  of  a  new  educational 
dispensation.  The  State  levy  for  educational  purposes 
was  largely  increased  and  the  Governor  worked  di- 
rectly and  indirectly  for  additional  local  taxation. 
Marked  progress  was  made  in  the  following  direc- 
tions :  improvement  in  the  character  of  the  schools,  the 
introduction  of  the  graded-school  system  into  the 
smaller  cities  and  villages,  and  the  subdivision  of 
larger  districts  so  that  schools  are  within  reach  of  all. 
Governor  Aycock  lost  no  opportunity  to  speak  to 
his  people  on  his  chosen  theme,  and  he  was  most  skill- 
ful in  suiting  his  messages  to  special  occasions.  One 
of  his  speeches  at  the  county-seat  of  a  remote  moun- 
tain county  was  said  to  be  typical.  Waynesville,  in 
the  Blue  Ridge  valley,  was  to  unveil  a  memorial  tablet 
to  the  founder  of  the  town.  Announcements  of  this 
event  stated  that  the  Governor  would  be  present  and 
deliver  an  address.  It  was  to  the  whole  region  a  day 
of  unusual  interest,  and  the  inhabitants  for  miles  around 
thronged  the  streets.  As  the  gathering  was  a  repre- 
sentative one  of  the  "  mountain  whites,"  one  might 
well  be  curious  to  see  how  the  educational  Governor 
would  be  received.  The  exercises  were  held  in  the 
court-house,  where  all  the  available  space  was  early 
occupied.  One  anxious  visitor  who  happened  to  be  a 
little  late  spent  fifteen  minutes  in  trying  to  get  within 
hearing  distance,  and  failed.  The  address  and  its 


6  RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH. 

effect  were  little  short  of  wonderful.  From  first  to 
last,  the  words  were  of  a  man  who  knew  his  subject, 
and  believed  in  it;  who  knew  his  auditors,  and  be- 
lieved in  them.  The  response  showed  that  the  hearers 
respected  the  speaker  and  that  they  respected  his  mes- 
sage. 

The  speaker  began  by  reference  to  his  former  ap- 
pearance on  that  platform,  and  to  the  promise  then 
made,  that  if  he  were  elected  there  would  be  furnished 
the  best  possible  education  for  every  boy  and  girl  in 
North  Carolina.  "  My  election,"  he  continued,  "  made 
my  pledge  that  of  the  people  of  the  State,  and  we  be- 
came co-laborers  in  a  great  work."  With  true  art, 
the  belief  was  expressed  that  every  man  in  the  assem- 
blage had  voted  for  him,  or  if  there  was  one  who  did 
not,  he  already  was  sorry  for  it.  "  I  come  to  you, 
then,"  he  said,  "  to  give  an  account  of  my  steward- 
ship, and  to  ask  that  you  keep  faith  with  me  by  doing 
your  part  in  the  stupendous  work  of  furnishing  edu- 
cational opportunity  to  all." 

The  occasion  was  made  to  teach  its  lesson;  the 
founder  of  Waynesville  had  been  a  Revolutionary  sol- 
dier, and  the  part  of  North  Carolina  in  the  Revolu- 
tion, from  the  Mecklenburg  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence to  the  campaigns  of  Green,  had  a  brilliant  setting. 
Local  pride  was  appealed  to ;  it  was  west  North  Caro- 
lina that  saved  the  "  State  of  Franklin  "  to  the  Union, 
and  Waynesville  played  an  important  part  in  that 
work.  The  marksmanship  of  Carolina  riflemen  re- 
ceived its  meed  of  praise  for  service  in  the  Second 


RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH.  7 

War  with  Great  Britain,  the  Mexican  War,  and  the 
Civil  War.  In  courage  and  heroic  endeavor,  the  Gov- 
ernor declared  his  people  to  be  second  to  none.  "  In- 
deed," he  asserted,  "  North  Carolinians  are  the  best 
people  in  the  world  when  they  are  doing  the  things 
they  have  been  trained  to  do."  The  greatest  shame  to 
a  North  Carolinian,  it  was  affirmed,  was  to  be  a  cow- 
ard, and  the  greatest  disgrace  to  turn  his  back. 

North  Carolina  was  then  boldly  declared  to  be  the 
poorest  State  in  the  Union,  and  the  most  illiterate  save 
one.  "  God  bless  South  Carolina !"  said  the  speaker ; 
"  she  has  got  us  into  a  good  deal  of  trouble,  but  she 
saves  us  the  ignominy  of  being  the  most  illiterate  of 
States."  Next  the  question  was  asked,  "  Why  are 
you  so  poor?  Is  it  because  you  are  lazy?  Yes,  you 
are  lazy.  Is  it  because  you  are  thriftless?  Yes,  you 
are  thriftless.  Is  it  because  you  are  lawless?  Yes, 
you  are  lawless ;  but  you  are  neither  more  lazy,  nor 
more  lawless,  than  your  neighbors.  North  Carolina 
is  poor  because  she  is  illiterate.  Massachusetts  is  rich, 
so  rich  that  it  sounds  like  a  dream ;  but  Massachusetts 
has  furnished  splendid  educational  opportunities.  The 
trouble  with  North  Carolina  has  been  that  we  have  too 
long  depended  on  the  education  of  the  few.  In  our 
widely  separated  communities  it  has  been,  and  is,  diffi- 
cult to  bring  education  within  reach  of  all ;  but  the 
future  welfare  of  the  State  depends  upon  this  being 
done." 

The  speaker  devoted  himself  to  the  proposition  that 
the  strength  of  a  state  can  be  adequately  measured 


&  RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH. 

by  the  average  intelligence  of  its  people,  dwelling  on 
this  as  it  affects  both  political  and  industrial  life. 
His  illustrations  were  most  pointed  and  convincing. 
"  When  you  buy  manufactured  articles,"  said  he,  "  you 
buy  them  from  Massachusetts,  and  you  pay  for  labor 
worth  four  dollars  a  day;  but  you  pay  in  the  products 
of  your  own  labor,  which  is  worth  fifty  cents  a  day. 
Now,  what  does  this  mean  ?  Why,  that  you  must  give 
eight  days  of  your  labor  for  one  day  of  that  of  the 
man  in  Massachusetts.  This  is  because  Massachusetts 
has  taught  her  people  to  work,  and  North  Carolina 
has  not.  Not  that  I  urge  a  mere  increase  in  wages," 
he  continued;  "doubling  the  wages  of  the  people  of 
North  Carolina  would  not  double  our  wealth ;  what  we 
need  is  an  increase  in  the  efficiency  of  our  workers. 
We  need  the  application  of  intelligence  to  our  work. 
In  the  Patent  Office  at  Washington  there  is  one  patent 
for  every  900  citizens  in  the  United  States  at  large, 
but  there  is  but  one  for  every  24,000  in  North  Caro- 
lina." Education  was  found  to  be  knowing  and  doing 
something,  and  the  man  who  knows  and  does  the 
things  that  the  times  demand  was  declared  to  be  some- 
thing. 

After  disposing  of  universal  education  as  a  general 
proposition  and  showing  the  folly  and  shortsightedness 
of  educating  the  few,  the  Governor  spoke  of  the  edu- 
cation of  negroes.  The  one  criticism  urged  against 
Charles  B.  Aycock  was  that  he  favored  taxing  white 
people  to  educate  the  blacks ;  but  he  declared  that  his 
plea  for  universal  education  in  1900  meant  the  edu- 


RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH.  9 

cation  of  the  blacks,  and  further,  that  when  he  said 
intelligence  should  rule,  he  did  not  mean  to' exclude 
the  intelligent  black  man.  Haywood  County,  in  which 
the  Governor  was  speaking,  had  about  six  hundred 
negroes  in  a  total  population  of  over  sixteen  thousand, 
and  the  sentiment  was  strong  against  the  white  sup- 
port of  schools  for  blacks.  The  discussion  of  negro 
education  before  that  audience  was  like  handling  fire 
over  a  powder  magazine. 

After  the  orator  was  thoroughly  en  rapport  with  his 
audience,  and  his  sentiments  had  been  again  and  again 
applauded,  he  concluded  a  brilliant  period  with  the 
statement,  "  Yes,  and  I  believe  in  the  education  of 
niggers!"  This  was  uttered  with  measured  delibera- 
tion and  intense  feeling.  The  audience  was  awed. 
The  speaker  paused  for  the  effect  of  what  he  had  said, 
and  noting  disapproval,  he  added :  "  I  perceive  that  I 
have  created  a  gulf  between  myself  and  my  audience ; 
but,"  with  deep  intensity,  "  my — fellow-citizens, — you 
— believe — in — the — education — of — niggers !"  The 
mountaineer  admires  courage,  and  probably  nothing 
but  the  Governor's  fearlessness  saved  him  from  being 
hissed. 

One  could  but  admire  the  skill  with  which  Governor 
Aycock  had  captured  the  strongholds  of  ignorance  and 
illiteracy;  but  when  he  rode  full  tilt  at  the  fortifica- 
tions of  race  prejudice,  the  seeming  self-interest  of 
his  audience,  and  the  traditions  of  over  two  hundred 
years,  it  seemed  too  much ;  one  feared  for  the  outcome. 
But  the  speaker  was  equal  to  the  task.  He  began : 


10  RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH. 

"You  believe  in  the  education  of  a  mule;  he  isn't 
worth  much  until  you  break  him ;  he  must  be  educated 
to  work;  he  will  bring  no  return  and  be  a  source  of 
expense  until  he  is  trained.  You  take  your  setter-pup 
or  your  fox-hound  and  school  him ;  he  would  do  more 
harm  than  good  until  he  is  educated.  Now,"  added 
the  Governor,  "  I  think  more  of  a  nigger  than  I  do 
of  a  mule  or  dog,  and  the  reasons  for  educating  a  mule 
or  a  dog  hold  to  a  greater  degree  for  educating  a 
nigger.  Intelligence  and  trained  skill  of  our  black 
men  are  necessary,"  he  continued,  "  for  the  material 
welfare  and  political  security  of  our  State."  This  was 
supplemented  by  a  discussion  of  true  and  false  educa- 
tion, illumining  and  convincing.  A  powerful  plea  was 
entered  for  the  education  of  hand  and  mind,  of  white 
and  black.  The  education  that  North  Carolina  needs, 
it  was  said,  is  that  which  shall  train  men  to  keep  con- 
tracts inviolate,  and  which  shall  lead  them  into,  not 
away  from  work. 

The  rest  of  the  speech  was  directed  toward  removing 
the  prejudice  against  local  taxation  for  schools,  and  to 
inducing  the  people  to  make  use  of  the  educational 
facilities  offered.  The  conclusion  was  reached,  and 
presented  with  power  that  "  the  best  money  spent  by 
any  community  is  that  spent  for  schools,"  and  those 
from  the  local  communities  were  urged  to  go  home, 
call  a  meeting,  and_  petition  the  proper  officials  for 
authority  to  place  an  extra  levy  for  school  purposes. 
The  Governor  said  that  the  compelling  power  of  public 
opinion  must  get  and  keep  the  children  in  school,  that 


RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH.  \\ 

the  State  had  no  compulsory  educational  law,  and 
could  not  enforce  one  if  it  did  have  it.  A  burden  of 
responsibility  was  laid  upon  the  teachers  to  get  chil- 
dren to  school ;  the  whole  community  was  commis- 
sioned a  vigilance  committee  to  see  that  the  youth  did 
not  grow  up  in  ignorance.  Withering  was  the  arraign- 
ment of  the  man  who  whittles  a  white-pine  stick  at 
the  cross-roads  while  his  wife  and  children  are  making 
a  living  for  themselves  and  him.  "  No  man  who  re- 
spects himself,"  it  was  said,  "  ought  to  speak  with  such 
a 'one;  tell  him  to  go  to  work;  to  get  his  wife  into  the 
home  and  his  children  into  the  school,  and  then  to 
come  backhand  you  will  talk  with  him."  The  speaker 
hoped  that  he  would  yet  see  the  men  of  North  Caro- 
lina at  work,  the  women  in  the  homes,  and  the  children 
in  the  schools.  The  ending  of  this  appeal  was : 
"  Oh,  I  wish  there  wasn't  a  white-pine  stick  in  the 
universe ;  we  have  spent  fifty  thousand  years  in  North 
Carolina  whittling  white-pine  sticks!"  The  speaker 
also  expressed  himself  on  the  man  who  keeps  his  chil- 
dren from  school  because  he  says  it  will  injure  them 
to  walk  a  mile  or  two  to  attend,  but  who  at  the  same 
time  compels  them  to  carry  corn  three  miles  to  a  mill. 
The  conclusion  was  a  call  for  self-sacrifice  and  labor.- 
'This  is  our  business,"  said  the  Governor;  "educa- 
tion that  we  do  not  work  for  will  do  us  little  good.  I 
would  not  accept  schools  as  a  free  gift  from  a  million- 
aire. I  want  the  people  of  North  Carolina  to  pay  the 
price  of  education  and  then  they  will  appreciate  what 
it  means."  While  the  call  was  to  a  difficult  task,  the 


12  RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH. 

speaker  said  he  knew  his  people,  and  felt  sure  that 
they  would  not  be  found  wanting.  He  had  confidence 
in  the  unmixed  and  uncontaminated  white  race  of 
North  Carolina.  As  Governor,  he  bade  his  hearers 
join  him  in  placing  a  school  within  the  reach  of  every 
child  of  the  State. 

The  logic  of  the  speech  was  convincing,  the  earnest- 
ness of  the  speaker  was  irresistible,  the  response  of  the 
audience  was  spontaneous.  Charles  •  B.  Aycock  and 
those  he  modestly  represented  have  been  rehabilitating 
a  State;  they  are  building  the  broad  foundations  of 
universal  education  for  the  superstructure  of  North 
Carolina's  political  and  economic  future.  Progress  in 
recent  years  has  been  marked;  already  North  Caro- 
lina can  give  a  new  account  of  herself.  The  per  capita 
expenditure  for  education  increased  from  sixteen  cents 
in  1870  to  fifty-one  cents  in  1900,  while  the  average 
earning  power  of  the  people  more  than  doubled  in  the 
decade  ending  1900;  but  this  was  only  the  beginning. 
North  Carolina's  expenditures  for  public  education 
more  than  doubled  in  the  six  years  following  1900. 
Mclver's  ringing  message  for  the  support  of  schools 
deserves  the  widest  currency  : 

Let  us  teach  honestly  and  boldly  that  education 
is  not  only  the  best  thing  in  our  civilization  for 
which  public  money  can  be  used,  but  that,  with  the 
exception  of  ignorance,  it  is  also  the  most  expen- 
sive; 

A  systematic  campaign  for  better  school  buildings 


RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH.  13 

was  begun  in  1902,  and  for  years  one  new  building 
a  day  was  said  to  have  been  added  to  the  State's 
equipment.  The  state  department  of  education  in 
North  Carolina  has  taken  active  interest  in  the  con- 
struction of  modern  buildings  and  has  issued  detailed 
information,  giving  plans  of  school-houses,  specifica- 
tions for  materials,  and  estimated  costs. 

•High  schools  as  well  as  ungraded  schools  have  felt 
the  uplift  of  the  new  educational  spirit  of  North  Caro- 
lina. Among  the  many  signs  of  progress  is  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  State  Inspector  of  Public  High  Schools 
in  1907,  and  the  evidence  of  his  work  in  a  special  hand- 
book for  high  school  teachers,  giving  courses  of  study, 
lists  of  text-books  and  reference  books,  with  discus- 
sions on  various  aspects  of  high  school  work. 

The  recent  educational  progress  of  •  North  Carolina 
is  built  on  the  State's  past.  Governor  Aycock  fre- 
quently quoted  from  the  Bill  of  Rights  of  the  State 
Constitution : 

The  people  have  the  right  to  the  privilege  of 
education,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  State  to  guard 
and  maintain  that  right. 

In  one  of  his  speeches  Aycock  said  in  a  character- 
istic passage :  "  I  have  carefully  examined  the  public 
documents  from  Governor  Vance  down  to  the  present 
time  and  I  find  that  I  have  enunciated  no  new  thought 
and  have  declared  no  new  principle  in  advocating  uni- 
versal education.  My  vanity  has  been  lessened  by  my 
study  of  what  has  been  said  in  the  past,  but  my  devo- 


14  RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH. 

tion  to  the  cause  of  universal  education  has  been  in- 
creased, and  I  trust  that  I  am  among  those  who  are 
willing  to  sacrifice  vanity  to  the  good  of  the  people." 

We  note  with  extreme  gratification  that  Governor 
Aycock's  successors  in  office  have  shown  themselves 
not  unmindful  of  the  privilege  and  the  duty  of  the 
high  position  which  he  occupied,  and  that  they  have 
used  every  endeavor  to  further  the  worthy  ends  of 
educational  reform.  A  statement  from  Governor 
Glenn,  who  was  Aycock's  successor,  deserves  a  place 
in  this  essay : 

Illiteracy,  the  twin  sister  to  vice,  is  one  of  the 
greatest  curses,  and  in  itself  is  often  the  source  of 
evil,  while  education  is  power,  and  shows  itself  in 
developing  our  industries  as  well  as  expanding  our 
minds  and  elevating  our  morals. 

From  North  Carolina  have  gone  men  and  influences 
that  have  lighted  the  path  of  educational  progress 
in  other  States  of  the  South,  and  that  also  have  been 
an  inspiration  to  North,  East,  and  West.  The  genial 
optimism  and  the  likable  personal  qualities  of  Charles 
D.  Mclver  are  as  a  benediction  to  the  generation  from 
which  he  has  so  lately  been  taken,  and  though  his 
voice  is  stilled  amongst  us,  he  yet  speaketh.  Edward 
Alderman,  in  rare  measure,  combines  solid  executive 
capacity  and  commanding  power  as  an  orator.  As 
president  of  the  leading  institutions  in  three  states  he 
has  in  a  peculiar  way  upheld  high  ideals  of  manhood 
and  citizenship,  and  best  of  all  he  has  been  sending 


RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH,  15 

out  into  the  States  trained  leaders.  Like  Aycock, 
Alderman  has  rare  gifts  of  speech,  and  these  men 
rank  among  the  most  conspicuous  examples  in  our 
generation  of  men  with  a  capacity  to  state  their  case. 
Among  the  North  Carolinians  who  have  gone  to  teach 
the  lessons  of  her  progress  in  broader  fields  is  Walter 
H.  Page,  whose  democracy  of  education  is  contained 
in  the  brief  statement :  "  It  is  a  shining  day  in  any 
educated  man's  growth  when  he  comes  to  see  and  to 
feel  and  to  know  and  admit  freely  that  it  is  just  as  im- 
portant to  the  world  that  the  ragamuffin  child  of  his 
worthless  neighbor  should  be  trained  as  it  is  that  his 
own  child  should  be.  Until  a  man  sees  this  he  cannot 
be  a  worthy  democrat,  nor  get  a  patriotic  conception 
of  education."  Not  less  important  than  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  foregoing  is  the  solid  constructive 
work  of  James  Y.  Joyner,  since  1902  Superintendent 
of  Public  Instruction  in  North  Carolina.  Others  may 
have  planted,  but  Joyner  has  tilled  and  harvested,  and 
the  new  educational  crop  of  North  Carolina  is  a  noble 
tribute  to  his  insight,  patience,  and  devoted  labor. 
The  National  Educational  Association  did  well  to  vote 
him  its  President  in  1909. 

This  movement  in  North  Carolina  seems  typical  of 
a  new  constructive  statesmanship  in  the  South.  Just 
at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  Robert  E.  Lee  wrote  to 
one  who  complained  of  the  hard  fate  in  store  for  those 
whom  he  termed  "  us  poor  Virginians  " :  "  You  can 
work  for  Virginia,  to  build  her  up  again,  to  make  her 
great  again.  You  can  teach  your  children  to  love  and 


16  RECLAIMING  A  COMMONWEALTH. 

cherish  her."  The  great  Captain  of  the  Confederacy 
waived  outside  business  opportunity  and  political  office, 
and  gave  his  last  years  to  what  he  regarded  as  the 
sacred  cause  of  training  the  youth  in  order  that  there 
might  be  a  greater  state  in  the  future.  Students  of 
conditions  in  the  Southland  assure  us  that  there  is  the 
growth  of  a  sober,  balanced  judgment,  especially  with 
regard  to  the  events  of  the  past,  in  dealing  with  the 
race  question,  and  in  planning  for  the  future  of  the 
region.  Through  education  the  South  is  entering  into 
the  heritage  of  a  sounder  moral  life,  a  more  secure 
political  organization,  a  more  highly  efficient  economic 
system.  All  honor  to  the  men  who  have  worked  and 
who  are  working  to  these  worthy  ends ! 


II. 

EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

IN  the  dark  days  that  followed  1 789  in  France 
there  went  through  the  streets  of  Paris  a  band  of  chil- 
dren bearing  the  banner  of  revolution  with  the  motto, 
"  Tremble,  tyrants,  for  we  are  growing  up !"  So,  up 
and  down  the  streets  of  our  cities,  and  in  and  out  of 
the  lanes  and  byways  throughout  the  land  an  army  of 
children  says,  in  effect,  to  the  responsible  men  of  the 
generation,  "  Tremble,  masters,  for  we  are  growing 
up !"  That  the  weal  of  the  nation  is  linked  with  the 
training  of  the  youth  is  a  truism  so  often  repeated  as 
to  seem  like  a  platitude.  Yet  at  times  its  force  is  re- 
vealed anew  in  the  realm  of  morals  or  of  pure  intellect, 
or  in  the  field  of  political  or  economic  activity. 

On  every  side  there  is  agreement  that  under  modern 
conditions,  the  geographical  position  and  natural  re- 
sources of  countries  as  well  as  the  native  aptitude  of 
people  count  for  relatively  less  and  less,  and  that  it  is 
supremely  important  for  a  nation  to  develop  the  power 
to  utilize  its  resources  and  secure  from  the  outside  the 
things  in  which  it  is  deficient.  A  desire  to  know  how 
Americans  can  pay  a  dollar  a  day  in  wages  where 
Englishmen  pay  but  a  shilling,  while  the  American 
surpasses  his  English  competitor  in  the  open  market, 

17 


18  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

has  sent  to  this  country  two  commissions  of  English 
experts;  and  more  recently  Mr.  Alfred  Mosely,  who 
brought  these  commissions,  was  of  the  opinion  that 
an  answer  to  his  inquiry  could  be  found  only  by  send- 
ing a  large  number  of  British  teachers  to  study  the 
American  nation  at  school. 

"  Whatever  you  would  have  appear  in  a  nation's 
life,  that  you  must  put  into  its  schools,"  is  rinding  gen- 
eral acceptance;  but  this  doctrine  raises  all  sorts  of 
questions.  The  most  perplexing  of  these  questions 
are,  What  should  we  have  in  a  nation's  life?  and, 
when  this  is  determined,  How  shall  it  be  put  into  the 
schools?  Schools  both  reflect  existing  national  ideals 
and  create  new  ideals.  Thus  a  nation,  through  its 
schools,  tends  to  perpetuate  itself,  and  thus  a  system 
of  education  is  born  of  the  genius  of  a  people.  This 
is  necessarily  of  slow  growth,  and  deeply  rooted  in 
national  traditions.  There  is  no  "  brand  ".  of  educa- 
tion that  can  be  shipped  from  country  to  country,  and 
applied  to  different  peoples  under  diverse  conditions. 

But  more  than  this,  no  single  form  of  education  is 
adequate  for  the  complex  life  of  one  nation.  And 
again  a  system  of  education,  however  elaborate,  de- 
vised for  one  period,  is  not  applicable  to  the  people 
for  whom  it  was  devised  in  successive  periods.  Thus 
it  is  in  the  words  of  Milton,  that  "  education  is  the 
noblest  design  that  can  be  thought  on,"  and  "  for  the 
want  whereof  a  nation  perishes." 

Improved  means  of  communication,  the  competition 
incident  to  the  opening-up  of  new  regions,  the  removal 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  19 

of  national  barriers,  numerous  international  expositions 
where  the  results  of  education  have  been  presented, 
these  are  some  .of  the  recent  events  which  give  special 
point  to  a  consideration  of  what  is  the  real  basis  of 
power  in  a  modern  nation. 

EDUCATION  AMERICA'S  DOMINANT  INTEREST. 

In  1820,  Daniel  Webster  proclaimed  that  every  man 
should  be  taxed  for  the  support  of  schools  as  a  police 
protection,  and  this  whether  he  had  any  children  to 
be  educated  or  not.  From  this  time,  interest  in  edu- 
cation has  grown  in  the  United  States  until  it  is  the. 
chief  concern  of  our  public  administration  and  social 
effort.  We  agree  with  the  statement  made  by  an 
American  man  of  letters,  that  the  United  States  is  the 
most  common-schooled  nation  in  the  world.  Yet,  the 
common-schools,  so-called,  by  no  means  circumscribe 
our  educational  activities.  Schools  to  train  for  efficient 
life  are  found  to  be  cheaper  than  almshouses,  asylums, 
and  prisons  to  care  for  the  incompetent,  the  unfor- 
tunate, and  the  vicious.  On  every  hand  is  coming  to 
be  accepted  the  sentiment  which  is  writ  large  over  a 
great  institution  in  the  American  state  which  perhaps 
has  done  most  for  education,  "  The  Commonwealth 
Requires  the  Education  of  the  People  as  the  Safe- 
guard of  Order  and  Liberty." 

EDUCATIONAL    REFORM    IN    ENGLAND. 

Of  late,  education  has  been  a  foremost  public  ques- 


20  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

tion  in  England.  The  Government  repeatedly  made 
a  school  bill  its  principal  measure,  over  which  the 
public  has  been  almost  as  deeply  stirred  as  over  Irish 
Affairs,  the  South  African  War,  the  Fiscal  Policy,  or 
any  other  measure  of  a  decade.  Back  of  the  agitation 
that  has  accompanied  the  debates  on  the  English  school 
bills  is  the  feeling  that  education  is  somehow  unsatis- 
factory. Just  why  and  how  schools  are  bad,  and  what 
should  be  done  to  improve  them,  are  matters  of  dis- 
agreement, but  the  English  public  knows  that  educa- 
tion is  in  need  of  revision. 

It  is  more  than  a  decade  since  that  superb  educa- 
•tional  leader,  Michael  E.  Sadler,  began  his  work  as 
Director  of  Special  Inquiries  and  Reports  on  Educa- 
tional Subjects.  Report  followed  report,  comparing 
English  education  with  that  in  foreign  countries  and 
pointing  out  deficiencies  in  English  schools.  In  ad- 
dition to  these  reports,  numerous  commissions  have 
visited  the  United  States  and  the  Continent,  and  have 
reported  that  England  makes  inadequate  educational 
provision.  By  degrees,  and  in  various  ways,  the  idea 
of  reforming  education  has  made  its  way,  and  this 
idea  has  now  expressed  itself  in  a  public  question  of 
first  importance. 

In  brief,  the  opinion  has  grown  that  the  creation  of 
a  system  of  caste  is  now  the  greatest  defect  of  English 
education.  For  the  aristocracy  by  birth,  the  schools 
are  good,  and  these  have  trained  the  leaders ;  but  these 
schools  are  not  accessible  to  all,  and  the  other  schools 
are  bad.  Some  of  the  private  schools  in  England  are 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  21 

of  the  best  in  the  world,  but  they  are  classical  in  spirit 
and  emphasis,  and  are  only  for  the  sons  of  persons  of 
means.  These  schools,  with  the  universities,  train 
men  for  the  church,  the  army  and  the  navy,  the  literary 
and  liberal  professions,  and  public  life.  Between  those 
trained  in  these  schools,  and  those  not  so  trained,  there 
is  a  social  barrier.  It  was  a  class  spirit,  born  of  edu- 
cation, that  prompted  the  Englishman's  prayer  that 
men  should  be  content  with  the  station  in  which  Provi- 
dence has  placed  them. 

Englishmen  realize  that  the  church  and  the  classics 
have  shackled  education,  and  that  there  is  in  their 
country  a  woeful  lack  of  schools  that  give  an  equality 
of  educational  opportunity  in  preparation  for  life. 
The  nation  is  found  weak  in  provisions  for  study  of 
the  mother  tongue,  science,  and  the  modern  languages. 
Honors  in  the  private  schools  and  the  universities  are 
given  largely  for  classics  and  mathematics,  but  what 
we  know  as  modern  secondary  schools,  with  up-to-date 
curricula  and  accessible  to  the  sons  of  the  people,  have 
been  almost  unknown  in  England.  Cecil  Rhodes  ex- 
pressed the  conservative  sentiment  of  Englishmen 
when  he  said,  "  If  Englishmen  would  stop  learning 
foreign  languages,  foreigners  would  be  compelled  to 
learn  English."  But  it  should  be  noted,  England's 
needs  for  foreign  languages  have  grown  constantly. 

The  recent  educational  bills  provided,  among  other 
things,  for  better  administration  and  increased  support 
of  schools,  for  the  taking  of  private  schools  under  public 
control;  and  there  seems  to  be  a  tendency  to  withdraw 


22  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

public  money  from  church  schools.  Americans  will 
readily  discern  in  these  bills  the  features  of  their  state 
educational  systems.  Germany,  France,  and  the 
United  States  have  long  recognized  the  dominance  of 
the  state  in  education,  but  England  makes  only  partial 
and  tardy  recognition  of  the  same  principle. 

The  educational  bill  of  1908  was  the  fourth  on  this 
subject  of  the  Government  which  introduced  it.  The 
thought  that  religious  differences  at  last  had  been 
compromised  gave  much  elation  when  the  bill  was 
made  public,  but  it  soon  appeared  that  extreme  Angli- 
cans and  Nonconformists  alike  were  dissatisfied,  while 
Romanists,  and  those  without  religious  affiliations,  ob- 
jected because  they  had  not  been  considered  in  the 
compromise.  The  opposition  gathered  so  quickly  and 
with  such  force  that  the  Government  withdrew  the 
bill,  and  the  reflection  remains,  whether  the  religious 
differences  of  England  can  ever  be  so  harmonized  as 
to  make  religion  an  acceptable  subject  of  instruction 
in  the  government  schools.  An  American  naturally 
asks  why  England  does  not  extend  and  perfect  her 
state  education  on  a  purely  secular  and  ethical  basis 
and  leave  religious  education  to  the  church  and  the 
home. 

English  private -schools  for  boys  may  well  excite 
admiration.  At  their  best,  and  for  those  who  are  so 
favored  as  to  attend  them,  they  are,  of  their  class, 
probably,  the  finest  schools  in  the  world.  These 
schools  have  had  no  slight  part  in  forming  the  re- 
sourceful, dogged  Englishman,  who  for  two  genera- 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  23 

tions  has  made  his  power  felt.  The  modern  era  of 
these  schools  began  when  Thomas  Arnold  went  to 
Rugby.  Arnold  showed  himself  not  only  the  greatest 
schoolmaster  of  modern  times,  but,  through  the  schools, 
he  has  exercised  a  lasting  influence  on  the  British 
nation. 

The  English  schoolboy's  normal  life  is  to  attend  a 
primary  school  or  to  remain  in  the  hands  of  a  governess 
or  tutor  until  he  is  ten,  when  he  is  placed  at  a  board- 
ing school  called  a  preparatory  school.  Here  he  re- 
mains until  he  is  fourteen,  at  which  age  he  is  trans- 
ferred to  the  so-called  public  school. 

"  Public  school  "  is  one  of  the  forms  of  private 
schools  in  England.  The  usual  period  at  the'  public 
school  is  from  fourteen  to  eighteen  years,  and  at  eigh- 
teen the  youth  enters  his  chosen  university.  "  Tom 
Brown's  School  Days,"  "  Stalky  &  Co.,"  and  biogra- 
phies of  great  Englishmen  have  made  the  names  of 
Rugby,  Eton,  Harrow,  Winchester,  St.  Paul's,  and 
others  familiar.  We  know  these  schools  for  their 
work,  we  know  them  for  their  play,  the  "  pastoral  in- 
fluence "  of  the  masters,  the  friendships  formed,  the 
lasting  impress  for  noble  living,  and  knowing  these 
things  we  say,  it  is  well  to  have  been  an  English 
schoolboy. 

A  tradition  of  the  English  schools  for  boys  makes 
the  higher  forms  or  classes  responsible  for  the  disci- 
pline and  the  general  tone  of  the  institutions.  Mem- 
bership in  the  upper  classes  brings  both  duties  and 
privileges.  These  schools  thus  train  for  leadership 


24  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

and  give  a  sturdy  self-reliance  which  has  proved  of 
large  service  to  the  nation. 

The  English  preparatory  school  is  objected  to,  first, 
because  it  takes  boys  from  home  and  places  them  in 
an  institution  at  too  early  an  age.  Lads  here  are  filled 
with  Latin  to  the  neglect  of  subjects  which  would  in- 
terest them  in  the  world  in  which  they  live.  The  char- 
acter of  the  public  school  is  largely  determined  by  the 
institutions  which  are  above  and  below  it.  The  Eng- 
lish universities  have  failed  of  their  largest  usefulness 
through  an  over-emphasis  of  the  conventional  classics 
and  mathematics,  but,  of  late,  tendencies  are  toward 
practical  studies  even  in  such  ancient  seats  of  learning 
as  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 

In  industry,  England  was  long  content  to  depend 
upon  her  leaders  and  the  machines  which  they  in- 
vented. As  compared  with  Germany,  she  has  given 
slight  heed  to  the  "  human  machine."  The  First 
Royal  Commission  on  Technical  Education  pointed  to 
the  fact  that  by  the  neglect  of  suitable  training  for 
her  population,  England  was  at  a  distinct  disadvan- 
tage, for  other  nations  with  superior  men  could  buy 
the  English  machines  and  easily  outstrip  her.  This 
Commission  strongly  urged  what  the  thoughtful  Eng- 
lishmen have  been  urging  for  almost  a  generation — a 
larger  attention  to  science  and  art  and  the  application 
of  these  to  practical  affairs.  In  1902,  great  progress 
was  made  in  the  passing  of  a  new  Technical  Educa- 
tion Act  which  eliminated  local  divisions  and  con- 
flicting control  and  unified  the  system  of  education  for 
industry. 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  25 

The  greatest  weakness  of  English  education,  and  a 
cause  for  present  concern,  is  the  abandonment  of  those 
who  cannot  attend  pay  schools  as  educational  outcasts. 
English  free  schools  are  conspicuously  inferior  to  pay 
schools.  Attention  to  education  has  been  forced  upon 
England  by  practical  necessity.  Over-sea  interests  of 
the  nation,  "  her  varying  life  and  changing  purpose," 
what  has  been  termed  England's  "  two-mindedness," 
her  necessity  for  economic  efficiency  and  commercial 
enterprise,  as  well  as  for  military  strength,  literary 
achievement  and  missionary  zeal — these  have  shown 
that  England  cannot  maintain  her  proud  place  by  edu- 
cating only  her  leaders.  The  "  Made  in  Germany  " 
cry  of  the  late  nineties,  and  the  "American  Peril  "  agi- 
tation of  more  recent  years,  have  helped  to  awaken 
the  nation  to  the  truth  of  Mr.  Alfred  Mosely's  conclu- 
sion that  in  addition  to  what  is  now  being  done  to 
educate  the  favored  few,  more  education  and  more 
practical  education  is  necessary  for  the  masses.  Re- 
cent educational  movements  have  sought  to  supple- 
ment, not  supplant,  the  schools  that  have  done  so 
much  for  England. 

MODERN    GERMAN    EDUCATION. 

The  defeat  at  Jena,  early  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
marked  the  turning-point  in  German  educational  his- 
tory. Territory  and  prestige  were  gone;  power  and 
glory  were  no  more.  But  the  Emperor  sounded  the 
call  for  a  new  Germany.  "  We  must  regain  at  home," 
he  said,  "  what  we  have  lost  abroad,"  and  his  method 


26  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

for  regaining  what  had  been  lost  was  through  educa- 
tion. The  Emperor  proclaimed  that  he  desired  noth- 
ing so  much  as  the  instruction  of  his  people.  In  1866 
Matthew  Arnold  declared  that  German  education 
could  not  fail  to  arouse  the  foreigner's  admiration,  yet 
educational  progress  has  been  more  rapid  in  the  last 
forty  years  than  it  was  in  the  previous  sixty.  The 
present  Emperor  has  done  much  to  make  more  effec- 
tive the  policy  begun  by  Frederick  William  III.  In 
a  hundred  years  education  has  rehabilitated  the  Ger- 
man Empire. 

A  German  boy  at  six  enters  a  public  elementary 
school  where  he  remains  for  three  or  four  years,  or  he 
may  enter  a  private  school,  or  a  preparatory  de- 
partment of  some  higher  school.  At  nine  or  ten  the 
lad  may  continue  in  a  town  school  for  four  years  ad- 
ditional, or  he  may  go  to  a  so-called  high  school  for  a 
six  or  a  nine-year  course,  or  he  may  go  to  a  private 
school  of  a  grade  corresponding  to  some  one  of  the 
schools  here  mentioned.  Where  he  will  go  depends 
upon  the  means  of  his  parents  and  their  ambition  for 
their  boy.  The  town  school  is  free  and  is  a  direct  con- 
tinuation of  the  public  elementary  school. 

The  minimum  of  educational  requirement  in  Ger- 
many is  a  completion  of  the  course  at  the  town  school, 
and  in  many  districts  additional  attendance  upon  what 
are  termed  continuation  schools.  These  latter  are  de- 
signed to  continue  the  education  of  those  who  are 
compelled  to  go  to  work  at  about  fourteen,  and  in- 
struction in  them  is  given  in  the  early  morning,  in  the 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  27 

late  afternoon,  or  in  the  evening.  The  compulsory 
attendance  feature  of  continuation  schools  varies;  in 
Saxony  attendance  is  required  for  three  years,  in 
Prussia  until  the  youth  is  eighteen. 

Boarding  schools  for  boys  are  not  common  in  Ger- 
many. Nor  is  any  form  of  private  school  independent 
there.  All  teachers  must  be  licensed  by  the  Govern- 
ment, and  those  in  private  schools,  as  well  as  in  public, 
are  required  to  be  specially  trained.  The  Government 
school  inspectors  visit  private  schools  and  exercise  rig- 
orous supervision  over  them.  In  considering  schools 
in  Germany  one  finds  the  reverse  of  the  conditions  in 
England;  private  schools  in  Germany  are  inferior  to 
public  schools,  and  are  not  in  high  favor.  In  the  city 
of  Munich,  for  example,  there  are  but  three  hundred 
children  in  attendance  in  private  schools  and  seventy 
thousand  in  the  public  schools.  In  that  city  attend- 
ance upon  private  schools  is  allowed  only  on  certificate 
issued  by  the  city  superintendent  of  schools.  Such  cer- 
tificates, the  superintendent  reports,  are  issued  only  to 
delicate  and  nervous  children. 

The  institutions  of  chief  interest  in  Germany  are  the 
public  high  schools.  In  part  these  are  state-supported 
schools,  and  in  part  they  are  supported  by  the  com- 
munities in  which  they  are  located;  in  case  of  local 
establishment,  these  schools  are  aided  by  state  subven- 
tions. These  public  schools  are  not  entirely  free,  those 
who  attend  being  required  to  pay  a  fee  usually  of 
about  twenty  dollars  a  year.  The  Government  app'ro- 
priates  for  each  student  an  amount  somewhat  larger 
than  the  amount  he  is  required  to  pay. 


28  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

Of  the  higher  schools  there  are  three  sorts:  the 
severely  classical,  with  a  strong  emphasis  on  Latin 
and  Greek;  the  modern,  with  Latin  and  one  modern 
language,  and  with  an  emphasis  on  mathematics  and 
science;  and  the  modern  without  Latin,  with  a  strong 
emphasis  on  modern  languages  and  literature  and 
science.  For  each  of  these  types  of  school  there  is  an 
official  six-year  and  a  nine-year  plan  of  studies,  so 
arranged  that  a  student  can  continue  for  the  last  three 
years  after  the  completion  of  the  first  six.  The  clas- 
sical school  for  nine  years,  called  the  gymnasium,  and 
the  modern  school  for  six  years,  called  the  realschule, 
are  the  extremes  of  the  German  higher  education. 

In  1900,  the  Emperor  issued  a  rescript  on  education 
which  was,  in  brief,  a  protest  against  the  dominance 
of  the  gymnasia.  He  declared  that  the  ideal  for  Ger- 
man education  should  not  be  to  make  good  Greeks  or 
good  Romans,  but  to  make  good  Germans.  Education, 
he  asserted,  should  not  train  men  to  see  the  world 
through  a  pair  of  spectacles,  but  through  their  own 
eyes.  German  schools  were  charged  with  failing  to 
develop  the  power  to  deal  with  practical  affairs,  and 
it  was  directed  that  more  attention  be  given  to  such 
subjects  as  the  mother  tongue,  modern  languages, 
science  and  geography.  To  give  effect  to  his  procla- 
mation, the  Emperor  ordered  that  the  exclusive  privi- 
leges hitherto  enjoyed  by  the  classical  gymnasia  should 
be  .abolished,  and  that  the  certificates  of  other  schools 
of  equal  grade  be  admitted  to  like  privileges  with  the 
certificates  of  the  gymnasia. 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  29 

The  most  interesting  recent  development  in  German 
education  is  the  rise  and  influence  of  the  realschulen. 
These  grew  out  of  the  trade  schools;  they  were  first 
recognized  by  the  Prussian  Government  in  1882,  and 
in  1892  they  were  given  their  present  names.  Addi- 
tional favors  have  been  extended  to  the  graduates  of 
these  schools  until  the  privileges  from  them  are  prac- 
tically the  same  as  the  privileges  from  the  gymnasia. 
The  realschulen  idea  is  in  such  high  favor  that  a  recent 
observer  terms  it,  "  the  darling  of  the  Prussian  edu- 
cational department." 

The  favors  extended  to  graduates  of  the  realschulen, 
such  as  exemption  from  two  years  of  compulsory  mili- 
tary service,  the  opening  of  numerous  civil  service 
positions,  admission  to  the  universities  and  other  higher 
institutions,  etc.,  have  drawn  pupils  to  them  until  at 
present  they  have  nearly,  or  quite,  forty  thousand  in 
attendance;  over  one  hundred  thousand  are  in  the 
gymnasia  and  about  eighty  thousand  are  in  the  schools 
that  have  Latin  but  not  Greek.  One  direct  result  of 
the  existence  of  these  various  forms  of  higher  schools 
with  equal  privileges  is  the  carrying  of  a  relatively 
large  number  through  the  higher  schools,  and  sending 
them  on  to  the  universities  and  higher  technical  insti- 
tutions. 

A  recent  educational  development  of  interest  in  Ger- 
many is  the  reform  in  the  higher  schools  for  girls. 
Beginning  with  1908,  women  were  admitted  into  the 
German  universities  on  substantially  the  same  terms 
as  men,  and  this  immediately  presented  a  new  educa- 


30  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

tional  problem  for  the  girls'  schools.  In  consequence 
of  the  new  policy,  girls'  higher  schools  are  now  being 
extended  and  modified.  One  party  seeks  to  make  the 
girls'  schools  as  nearly  as  possible  like  the  boys' 
schools.  Another — and  it  would  seem  a  wiser  group — 
would  make  the  girls'  schools  distinctive  and  have  their 
curricula  and  methods  determined  by  the  special  needs 
of  women.  A  somewhat  bitter  controversy  has  gone 
on  as  to  how  the  girls'  schools  shall 'be  shaped.  It  is 
obvious  that  no  matter  which  of  the  opposing  factions 
shall  prevail,  education  for  women  in  Germany  will  be 
the  gainer.  The  reform  which  is  just  begun  bids  fair 
ultimately  to  change  the  social  and  economic  position 
of  the  German  woman.  The  second  year  following 
the  new  regulation  saw  a  marked  increase  in  the  num- 
ber of  women  students  attending  German  universities. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  German  child  who  is  to 
study  a  foreign  language  begins  at  nine  or  ten,  while 
an  American  child  would  likely  not  begin  until  four 
or  five  years  later.  The  cumulative  effect  of  nine 
years  of  language  study  in  the  same  school,  and 
directed  to  the  same  end,  produces  in  the  German  an 
intellectual  power  and  an  efficiency  in  handling  the 
language  not  realized  in  American  schools.  No  doubt 
this  statement  might  be  applied  with  equal  truth  to 
other  subjects  of  study. 

One  must  visit  classes  in  German  schools  to  appre- 
ciate how  admirable  are  their  methods  of  language 
teaching,  and  how  notable  are  their  results.  The  for- 
eigner is  most  impressed  with  the  so-called  natural 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  31 

method  of  studying  languages.  Probably  the  best  ex- 
ponent of  this  method  is  Dr.  Max  Walter,  the  Director 
of  the  Musterschule  in  Frankfort-on-Main.  Dr.  Wal- 
ter has  been  proceeding  on  the  theory  that  a  modern 
language  should  be  studied  before  Latin  because  it  is 
easier,  and  that  it  is  the  natural  order  to  proceed  from 
the  less  difficult  to  the  more  difficult.  He  also  holds 
to  use  of  the  language  being  studied  from  the  start, 
and  seeks  to  reach  the  grammar  through  the  language 
rather  than  the  use  of  the  language  through  the  gram- 
mar. It  was  the  writer's  privilege  to  spend  some  days 
with  Dr.  Walter  and  to  observe  his  method  with  be- 
ginning and  advanced  classes  in  French  and  English. 
In  brief,  it  can  be  said  that  all  the  pupils  learn  to  read 
and  speak  the  language  studied,  and  many  of  them 
do  so  with  remarkable  accuracy  and  confidence.  The 
further  observation  was  made  that  all  the  pupils  en- 
joyed the  language  study  and  entered  with  spirit  into 
the  class  exercise.  Similar  results  were  found  else- 
where, and  in  the  mastery  of  a  language  one  may  well 
say  that  the  German  schools  furnish  the  keynote  of 
power. 

German  technical  education  is  extensive  and  ad- 
mirable. First  are  the  continuation  schools  mentioned 
above,  supported  in  part  by  grants  of  public  funds  and 
in  part  by  fees  from  the  employers  of  those  to  be  edu- 
cated. One  division  of  the  continuation  school  is  gen- 
eral, for  the  direct  following-up  of  the  instruction  in 
the  town  schools,  but  the  special  forms  of  these  schools 
are  the  most  important.  Continuation  schools  are  of 


32  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

two  sorts :  voluntary,  for  those  who  have  passed  the 
required  age,  and  compulsory,  for  those  who  have  not 
yet  reached  it. 

Instruction  is  given  in  the  continuation  and  trade 
schools  covering  the  principal  trades  and  occupations. 
Foresters,  carpenters,  cabinet-makers,  printers,  brew- 
ers, weavers,  clerks,  policemen,  and  many  other  work- 
men are  trained  in  these  schools.  A  detailed  exam- 
ination of  the  continuation  schools  in  the  city  of 
Munich  shows  that  more  than  forty  branches  of  trade 
instruction  are  provided  in  that  city  alone. 

Parallel  with  the  continuation  schools  are  the  middle 
technical  day  schools  for  those  who  can  give  their  full 
time  to  school  work.  These  take  boys  averaging  about 
fourteen  and  keep  them  for  three  years.  Courses  in 
these  schools  are  almost  as  diverse  as  are  those  in  the 
continuation  schools.  Often  the  same  building  and 
equipment  are  used  for  both  these  classes  of  schools, 
their  hours  not  conflicting. 

Above  the  middle  technical  schools  are  numerous 
great  technical  high  schools,  and  a  large  number  of 
separate  higher  schools  for  special  trades  and  indus- 
tries, such  as  mining,  agriculture,  forestry,  veterinary 
medicine,  art,  commerce,  army  and  navy,  and  colonial 
administration.  Each  of  these  trades  or  callings  is 
represented  by  a  separate  institution ;  and  instruction 
preparatory  to  the  callings  just  named,  as  well  as  to 
various  branches  of  engineering  and  technology,  is 
offered  also  in  each  of  the  technical  high  schools. 

German  education  in  its  entirety  is  a  magnificent 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  33 

system,  and  it  is  bearing  its  fruits.  In  brief,  it  is 
organized  to  furnish  both  general  training  and  an 
equipment  for  the  particular  thing  which  is  to  be  done. 
One  who  had  recently  traveled  extensively  in  Germany 
and  in  our  own  country  said  that  if  fifty  million  Amer- 
icans were  placed  within  the  borders  of  the  German 
Empire  they  would  die  of  starvation ;  yet,  he  said, 
fifty  million  Germans  were  there,  a  thrifty  and  con- 
tented people.  German  emigration  has  diminished; 
Germans  are  trained  to  work  at  home  and  send  their 
goods  abroad,  and  Germany  has  become  a  potent  fac- 
tor in  modern  industrial  and  commercial  affairs;  but 
education  is  the  chief  corner-stone  in  Germany's  pres- 
ent prosperity. 

According  to  Coleridge,  the  ideal  of  German  educa- 
tion is  the  training  of  intelligent,  obedient,  "  organiz- 
able,"  and  useful  subjects.  German  schoolmasters  have 
aimed  to  cultivate  a  true  love  of  learning,  and  also  to 
make  learning  serve  useful  ends,  and  they  have  had 
marked  success.  Without  doubt  Germany  has  devel- 
oped the  highest  average  intellectual  capacity  of  any 
nation  in  modern  times.  She  has  also  given  to  her 
people,  as  a  whole,  a  greater  skill  for  work  than  has 
been  given  to  the  people  of  any  other  country. 

But  to  an  American,  German  education  seems  to 
convert  a  virtue  into  a  vice ;  her  elaborate  system  lacks 
the  spontaneity  which  we  regard  as  a  first  requisite. 
German  subjects  are  "  organizable,"  but  there  is  in 
the  Empire  an  obvious  tendency  toward  militarism, 
officialism,  and  socialism.  Germans  are  methodical 


34  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

and  deliberate,  but  as  a  nation  they  seem  wanting  in 
the  initiative  and  alertness  which  will,  we  believe,  in 
the  long  run,  overcome  the  greatest  obstacles  and 
achieve  the  largest  success. 

THE   FRENCH    SYSTEM. 

In  seeking  to  perpetuate  national  traditions,  French 
schools  long  made  tradition  into  a  fetish.  The  honor- 
able thing  in  France  has  been  the  Government  service, 
and  education  aimed  at  producing  good  officials.  As 
a  result,  the  utilitarian  in  education  is  despised  as 
tending  to  the  vulgar,  and  a  social  distinction  is  fixed 
by  the  school  one  attends.  There  has  long  been  in 
France  a  type  of  man  best  described  by  the  word  func- 
tionary, and  though  education  is  changing  the  type 
somewhat,  this  man  is  still  common.  He  is  wanting  in 
personal  aims  and  ambition ;  he  lives  to  take  orders. 

In  the  organization  of  an  international  jury  of 
awards  at  a  recent  world's  fair,  one  of  these  French 
public  officials  was  appointed  vice-chairman.  It  later 
developed  that  this  vice-chairmanship  had  been  prom- 
ised to  the  representative  of  another  nation,  and  soon 
an  international  complication  arose.  The  Frenchman 
resigned,  as  his  commissioner-general  directed  him  to 
do,  and  forthwith  a  German,  who  felt  that  his  nation 
had  not  been  fairly  dealt  with,  demanded  the  place; 
but  the  Frenchman  reclaimed  his  position,  and  when 
asked  to  explain  his  action  he  made  a  statement  that 
revealed  a  system  of  education  and  the  character  of  a 
people.  He  said:  "I  am  not  vice-chairman ",  I  am 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  35 

vice-chairman ;  I  resign ;  I  do  not  resign ;  I  am  a  victim 
on  the  altar  of  diplomacy."  The  German,  in  a  tower- 
ing rage,  protested  against  this  proceeding,  demanding 
acti'on,  and  waving  the  rules  before  the  jury,  he  fairly 
shouted,  "  It  is  the  law !"  As  one  watched  these  men, 
the  representatives  of  education  for  their  respective 
countries,  he  felt  that  in  a  way  they  typified  their 
nations — one  vacillating  and  dallying,  the  other  blunt 
and  honest,  even  to  brutality. 

French  training  for  clearness  and  accuracy  of  ex- 
pression is  unsurpassed.  Many  French  philosophical 
and  scientific  works  are  marvels  of  lucidity,  and  they 
have  at  the  same  time  an  accuracy  that  makes  them 
the  more  remarkable.  Prof.  Barrett  Wendell  remarks 
that  French  scholars  are  not  "  swamped "  by  their 
facts,  and  points  out  that  with  their  scientific  correct- 
ness they  retain  "  the  dynamic  quality  of  mental 
habit."  We  may  well  share  Professor  Wendell's  feel- 
ing that  it  would  be  a  gain  to  American  scholarship  if 
more  American  students  who  study  abroad  would  at- 
tend the  French  universities. 

Late  French  elections  indicate  that  schools  are 
wielding  an  increasing  influence  in  that  country.  De- 
spite ecclesiastical  complications  and  army  scandals, 
the  Government  has  been  supported,  and  France  is 
found  to  have  more  stability  than  she  once  possessed. 
M.  Jaures  offers  an  explanation  of  a  late  vote:  "  It  is 
the  grammar  school  and  the  high  school  teachers,"  he 
says,  "  that  have  spoken  to  France  through  their  pupils 
during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  and  henceforth  a 


36        EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

new  political  fortune  awaits  the  country.  For  twenty- 
five  years  the  schools  have  been  fashioning  real  repub- 
licans. The  young  man  of  thirty  spoke  with  such  firm 
accents  that  he  became  at  once  the  master  of  France." 

THE   SCHOOLS    AT   PLAY. 

When  the  Invincible  Armada  sailed  into  the  Chan- 
nel in  1588  the  English  commanders  were  engaged  in 
a  game  of  competitive  sport  which  they  felt  they  must 
finish  before  going  forth  to  do  battle  for  the  nation. 
And  these  English  proved  the  better  fighters  because 
of  the  qualities  which  the  games  developed.  After. 
Waterloo,  Wellington  remarked  that  the  English 
cricket-field  had  won.  It  was  the  waiting  power  of 
the  Englishman,  his  sinking  of  self  and  action  with 
his  fellows  that  had  triumphed,  and  these  are  qualities 
developed  by  the  English  school  games.  French  edu- 
cation may  have  something  to  teach  Americans,  Ger- 
man education  surely  has  much,  but  in  organizing 
school  games  and  getting  the  value  from  these,  Amer- 
ica can  give  useful  lessons  to  both  France  and  Ger- 
many. 

School  games  have  developed  into  an  institution  for 
education  in  England  and  in  the  United  States,  and 
though  sometimes  abused,  they  are  an  important  fea- 
ture of  school  life.  By  competitive  sport  boys  learn 
manliness  and  self-control ;  in  team-play  selfishness  is 
overcome;  boys  forget  self  and  play  that  their  team 
may  win.  So  important  do  games  and  other  outside 
interests  become  in  some  English  and  American  schools 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  3^ 

that  "lessons  are  in  danger  of  becoming  a  side  issue, 
and  yet  we  dare  to  believe  that  many  of  these  are  ad- 
mirable schools.  The  "  play  fair  "  and  "don't  cry  " 
spirit  which  games  can,  and  do,  develop  may  become 
of  first  importance  as  a  means  of  education. 

The  school  sports  -have  made  it  possible  for  school- 
masters to  come  close  to  those  in  their  charge.  In  the 
old-time  boarding-school  the  masters  were  regarded  as 
the  boys'  natural  enemies — the  men  who  went  stealth- 
ily about  in  soft-soled  shoes  to  surprise  boys  and  spy 
out  their  doings.  In  place  of  these  have  come,  as 
masters,  athletic  college  men  who,  as  a  friend  of  the 
boys,  mix  freely  with  them  in  their  games,  and  meet 
them  in  dormitory  and  classroom  as  man  to  man. 
These  men  have  not  gone  down  to  the  level  of  the 
boys ;  they  have  brought  the  bqys  to  a  higher  level ; 
their  example  is  a  most  positive  force  for  education. 

The  capacity  to  play  hard  and  thus  to  find  relaxa- 
tion is  necessary  to  the  nation  that  is  to  work  hard. 
Demolins,  in  his  "Anglo-Saxon  Superiority,"  asserts 
that  there  is  nothing  comparable  to  an  Englishman's 
working  power,  unless  it  is  his  resting  power.  Both 
Americans  and  Englishmen  learn  to  play  while  at 
their  schools,  and  this  is  a  lesson  not  so  well  learned 
in  Germany  and  France.  An  Englishman  recently 
went  to  a  German  football  game,  and  though  the  game 
was  played  near  two  large  cities,  and  under  conditions 
that  would  quite  likely  have  brought  out  from  fifteen 
to  twenty  thousand  spectators  in  the  United  States, 
there  were  in  Germany  but  sixty-five  present.  In  this 


38  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

country  the  spectators  would  have  been  wildly  excited, 
and  the  players  self-contained,  but  in  Germany  the 
spectators  had  only  a  passing  interest,  and  the  players 
gave  evidence  of  great  excitement,  constantly  gesticu- 
lating and  calling  to  their  team-mates. 

The  evil  of  competitive  school,  sport  in  this  country 
grows  out  of  a  desire  to  win  at  any  price,  and  against 
this  both  school  authorities  and  the  public  should  reso- 
lutely set  themselves.  Not  fewer,  but  more,  school 
games ;  not  every  effort  bent  to  the  perfection  of  a  few 
picked  players  and  making  heroes  of  these,  but  the 
participation  of  a  large  number  in  the  games ;  not  any- 
thing to  win,  but  honor  first  and  always — these  are 
some  of  the  fundamentals  by  which  school  sports 
should  be  governed  that  they  may  be  more  useful  as 
factors  in  education. 

EDUCATIONAL   AIMS. 

Education  can  have  no  higher  aim  than  character- 
forming,  and  character  must  be  expressed  in  action. 
Thus  education  is  more  than  "  teaching  people  to  know 
what  they  do  not  know;"  it  is  leading  them  to  do  as 
they  would  not  otherwise  do.  An  educated  man  is  one 
"  trained  to  cooperate  in  the  purposes  of  human  prog- 
ress." What  one  is,  is  more  important  than  what  he 
knows,  for  what  he  is  determines  how  he  will  act. 
The  best  education  for  an  individual  and  a  nation  is 
that  which  is  translated  into  worthy,  useful  living. 

An  Englishman  says  that  the  German  test  for  an 
individual's  education  is  what  he  knows;  the  French 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  39 

test  is  what  examination  he  has  passed;  the  English, 
what  sort  of  a  fellow  he  is;  and  the  American,  what 
can  he  do?  Americans  may  be  well  content  to  retain 
and  perfect  their  own  standard.  Knowledge,  skill  and 
character  should  be  put  to  the  test  of  doing. 

The  best  American  schools  have  followed  the  best 
English  schools  in  giving  much  attention  to  the  rest, 
food,  games,  etc.,  of  their  pupils.  The  masters  in 
these  schools  regard  the  work  in  the  classroom  as  per- 
haps the  least  important  of  their  duties.  The  school 
life  is  a  world-in-little;  pupils  who  aid  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  school  thus  learn  the  first  lessons  of  leader- 
ship. By  this  kind  of  education  there  has  been  pro- 
duced the  political  leader  in  England  and  the  type  of 
man  recently  coming  to  the  fore  in  our  own  public  life. 
The  aim  of  these  schools  is  the  all-around  develop- 
ment of  the  individual,  and  their  product  is  to  be  de- 
sired rather  than  the  German  mechanical  type  or  the 
French  functionary. 

But  the  weakness  of  English  and  American  educa- 
tion is  the  tendency  to  rejoice  over  one  "  lad  of  pairts  " 
and  to  neglect  the  larger  body  of  those  to  be  educated. 
"  Think  of  the  multitudes  that  have  been  lost,"  was  a 
stock  saying  of  Colonel  Parker,  one  of  the  great  edu- 
cational reformers  of  his  generation.  After  the  ex- 
tension of  suffrage  in  England  a  far-seeing  statesman 
exclaimed,  "  Now  we  must  educate  our  masters." 
Woe  betide  the  future  if  the  people  as  masters  are  not 
given  the  desire  and  the  capacity  to  do  right  things. 
Education  must,  of  necessity,  be  diverse  and  have 


40  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

diverse  aims,  for  it  is  teaching  to  live,  and  in  these 
times  life  is  complex  and  many-sided;  but  all  schools 
should  have  in  common  the  aim  of  teaching  men  to 
live  worthily. 

The  highest  ideal  for  American  schools  was  ex- 
pressed by  one  of  the  finest  products  of  these  schools 
in  our  time.  In  his  address  to  sixteen  hundred  boys 
at  the  dedication  of  the  new  Central  High  School 
building  in  Philadelphia,  President  Roosevelt  exhorted 
his  hearers  to  work  hard  and  play  hard.  His  senti- 
ment of  that  day  has  passed  into  a  proverb,  and  it 
may  well  become  a  watchword  of  our  education, 
"  Don't  flinch,  don't  foul,  and  hit  the  line  hard." 

Of  late  we  have  heard  of  a  fourteenth-century 
society  devoted  to  education,  known  as  "  Breth- 
ern  of  the  Common  Life."  At  first  this  brotherhood 
concerned  itself  only  with  religious  education,  but  it 
widened  its  purpose  until  it  became  a  part  of  the'  gen- 
eral educational  movement  which  resulted  in  the  Re- 
naissance and  the  rise  of  universities.  The  name  of 
this  organization  well  expresses  the  purposes  of  mod- 
ern education,  which  are,  in  brief,  to  train  men  to  dis- 
charge their  obligations  to,  and  participate  in,  a  life 
common  with  their  fellows.  Thus,  education  comes  to 
be  more  complex  with  a  steady  growth  of  the  com- 
plexities in  the  social  order.  Thus,  also  are  we  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  "  absolute  code  "  in 
education,  for  any  subject,  for  all  time,  or  for  all 
peoples.  No  longer  is  the  doctrine  popular  that  it  is 
necessary  to  train  only  the  leaders.  John  Morley 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  41 

urges  a  significant  truth  when  he  says  that  the  chances 
for  the  exceptional  genius  are  highest  in  a  society 
where  "  the  average  interest,  curiosity  and  capacity 
are  all  the  highest."  The  aims  of  our  education  should 
be  not  to  train  for  a  political  democracy  alone,  as  has 
been  so  largely  true  in  England,  but  to  equip  for  a 
social  democracy  as  well: 

The  public  schools  best  express  the  genius  of  Amer- 
ican democracy.  To  the  question,  What  is  the  chief 
industry  of  the  United  States?  an  American  foreign 
minister  replied,  Education.  Our  intense  interest  in 
schools  is  evidenced  first  in  the  liberal  support  ex- 
tended to  them,  but  the  interest  does  not  end  here. 
Edward  Everett  termed  the  common  schools  of  his 
time  "  invaluable  for  their  commonness."  The  com- 
mon schools  are  the  schools  of  the  common  life  and 
purpose  of  the  nation.  European  countries  with  small 
territorial  extent,  a  tolerably  fixed  population,  and 
well-defined  social  classes,  scarcely  realize  the  difficul- 
ties presented  to  America  with  her  extensive  and 
widely  dissimilar  territory,  and  her  mixed  population 
drawn  from  all  the  principal  countries  of  the  world. 
A  foreign  observer  notes  that  our  population  is  as  dis- 
similar as  are  the  physical  areas  of  the  country.  The 
only  possibility  of  our  becoming  and  remaining  a 
nation  is  that  the  schools  shall  serve  as  a  "  crucible  " 
in  which  these  mixed  social  classes  may  be  fused.  The 
American  high  school  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the 
equality  of  educational  opportunity  and  of  the  level- 
ing effects  of  education.  This  school  stands  as  the 


42  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

"  open  door  "  to  the  professions,  to  increased  intellec- 
tual power  and  to  higher  industrial  and  commercial 
efficiency ;  and  it  is  the  school  of  the  people,  free  and 
on  the  same  terms  to  rich  and  poor,  to  those  whose 
lineage  is  drawn  from  generations  of  Americans  and 
to  the  recently-arrived  immigrant.  Here  is  given  the 
preparation  for  a  common  purpose  and  a  higher  life. 

During  the  last  twenty-five  years  there  are  unmis- 
takable evidences  of  the  coming  together  of  the  acad- 
emic and  the  practical  in  all  grades  of  schools.  This, 
as  we  might  wish,  is  to  the  gain  of  both  elements. 
Much  of  the  lament  is  heard  for  the  old-fashioned 
common  school  with  its  three  R's ;  but  the  music,  draw- 
ing, manual  training  and  cooking  introduced  into  the 
elementary  schools  have  not  stood  in  the  way  of  re- 
sults as  satisfactory  as  ever  were  secured  in  the  old 
academic  branches.  Recently  there  was  found  a  set 
of  examination  questions  and  the  answers  given  to 
them  in  Springfield,  Mass.,  in  1846,  and  these  same 
questions  were  set  for  the  pupils  of  a  corresponding 
grade  in  a  modern  school.  The  results  show  that 
pupils  now  spell  and  figure  as  well  as  did  those  fifty 
years  ago,  and  that  present-day  children  do  not  fall 
below  their  predecessors  in  knowledge  of  geography. 
But  what  this  test  did  not  show  is  that  pupils  now 
know  vastly  more  things  than  did  their  predecessors. 

The  various  types  of  the  vocational  high  school  have 
not  disregarded  academic  interests.  They  have  taken 
these  interests  and  given  them  direct  application. 
Manual  training,  commercial  and  technical  high 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  43 

schools  are  only  giving  new  force  and  vigor  to  old 
knowledge.  Similarly  the  higher  technical  schools 
are  based  on  the  science  and  the  mathematics  of  the 
so-called  academic  education.  Nor  is  this  all.  With 
the  best  representatives  of  the  technical  and  vocational 
education  there  is  a  firm  conviction  that  the  literary, 
and  what  have  long  been  termed  cultural,  elements  in 
training  are  a  requisite  if  the  man  of  affairs  is  to  have 
his  largest  successes. 

An  unmistakable  tendency  of  schools  everywhere  is 
to  equip  men  for  their  vocations.  President  Roosevelt 
said  to  a  company  of  educators  in  1908  that  they  were 
to  train  towards  the  farm  and  workshop  and  not  away 
from  them,  and  this  indicates  the  trend.  In  Germany 
education  for  vocations  has  been  longer  established 
and  it  has  had  a  fuller  development  than  in  other  coun- 
tries, and  it  has  as  a  consequence  shown  more  marked 
results  than  elsewhere.  In  addition  to  the  various  gov- 
ernment activities  for  technical  education  in  Germany, 
numerous  guilds,  chambers  of  commerce  and  the  like, 
contribute  to  the  same  end.  This  indicates  a  much 
more  prevalent  sentiment  for  this  kind  of  education 
than  exists  in  other  lands.  As  a  result  of  this  instruc- 
tion, and  under  present  conditions,  Germany  occupies 
practically  an  unassailable  position  among  the  indus- 
trial nations  of  the  world. 

But  there  is  much  to  give  satisfaction  in  our  own 
educational  outlook.  Our  system  is  not  so  cut  and 
dried  as  are  the  systems  of  foreign  countries,  and  it 
does  not  produce  the  same  rigidity  and  formalism.  It 


44  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

leaves  much  more  to  the  individual  than  does  the  train- 
ing of  any  other  nation.  Eliot,  Harris,  Butler,  and 
other  interpreters  of  our  educational  progress  dwell  on 
spontaneity  as  a  keynote.  This  has  resulted  in  part 
from  Anglo-Saxon  characteristics.  No  doubt  it  has 
also  been  affected  by  the  enormous  material  riches  of 
our  continent. 

But  we  should  bear  in  mind  that  these  riches  are 
not  inexhaustible  and  that  our  methods  have  resulted 
in  much  waste  and  extravagance,  as  well  as  some  ineffi- 
ciency and  self-complacency.  As  our  population  in- 
creases and  becomes  more  congested,  our  schools  grow 
larger  and  grave  dangers  arise  from  platooning  the 
pupils,  and  the  loss  of  that  individual  power  which 
was  once  the  strength  of  our  education.  This  necessi- 
tates more  careful  formal  training  than  we  have  given 
heretofore. 

American  schools  are  not  without  serious  faults. 
Their  product  seems  more  impelled  to  act  than  to 
think,  or  to  act  first  and  think  afterwards.  It  is  too 
largely  an  American  ideal  that  every  man  is  to  gain 
distinction  by  beating  the  record  of  his  predecessor, 
and  then  continuing  to  beat  his  own  record. 

So  far  as  our  schools  have  set  themselves  a  definite 
purpose,  it  is  to  train  for  political  rather  than  economic 
life.  This  is  well  exemplified  in  the  almost  constant 
appeal  for  the  scholar  in  politics,  education  in  democ- 
racy, etc.  Horace  Mann  declared  the  ideal  in  a  state- 
ment: "  No  man  is  worthy  the  honored  name  of  states- 
man who  does  not  include  the  highest  practicable  edu- 
cation of  the  people  in  all  his  plans  of  administration." 


EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER.  45 

Only  of  late  are  we  coming  to  an  acceptance  of  the 
truth  that  industrial  and  commercial  competition  are 
to  be  the  warfare  of  the  future.  But  there  is  a  larger 
truth  than  this  expressed  by  Commissioner  Draper 
when  he  says :  "  Let  us  make  our  industries  contribute 
not  only  to  our  wealth  and  to  our  strength,  but  to  our 
manhood  as  well." 

As  compared  with  Europe,  the  United  States  is  most 
fortunate  in  being  freed  from  large  expense  for  a 
military  system,  and  in  having  the  money  thus  saved 
to  use  for  education.  A  continental  journal  states  that 
France  spends  five  times  as  much  for  her  army  as  for 
her  schools,  Germany  three  times  as  much,  Austria 
four  times  as  much,  and  Italy  twice  as  much.  Swit- 
zerland is  said  to  be  the  only  European  country  spend- 
ing more  for  schools  than  for  her  military  system. 

Americans  should  realize  their  advantages.  We 
have  unexampled  opportunities  from  our  isolation, 
from  our  cheap  and  abundant  raw  material,  from  our 
freedom  from  the  precedent  of  conventional  restraint. 
Mr.  Omer  Buyse  of  Charleroi,  Belgium,  after  a  de- 
tailed study  of  American  educational  methods,  writes 
as  follows :  "  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  you  possess 
strongly  characterized  Systems  of  Education,  the  out- 
come of  your  national  spirit.  And  from  your  ways, 
we  Europeans  have  much  to  learn.  I  even  express 
the  hope  that  you  should  continue  in  the  same  progres- 
sive way  and  avoid,  as  much  as  possible,  European 
influence,  which  would  disturb  the  admirable  concord- 
ance between  your.systems  and  your  national  spirit." 


46  EDUCATION  THE  KEYSTONE  OF  POWER. 

We  should  be  more  ready  than  are  foreign  investi- 
gators to  acknowledge  that  we  have  much  to  learn 
from  foreign  systems,  and  holding  fast  to  what  is  best 
in  our  own  education,  adapt  the  established  and  useful 
practices  of  other  peoples,  and  make  our  schools  more 
and  more  the  keystone  of  our  moral,  our  political,  and 
our  economic  power. 


III. 

OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION. 

NOT  infrequently  the  question  arises,  What  is  the 
so-called  new  education,  and  how  does  it  differ  from 
the  education  long- established?  Education  for  its 
own  sake,  cultural  education — a  name  given  to  the  old 
training — is  commonly  arrayed  as  necessarily  hostile 
to  applied  education  for  agriculture,  industry  and 
commerce.  Indeed,  we  have  separate  schools  for  each  : 
for  the  old, — classical  high  schools,  classical  colleges, 
gymnasia,lycee,ztc. ;  for  the  new, — commercial  schools, 
manual  training  schools,  technical  schools,  scientific 
schools,  trade  schools,  realschulen,  colleges  commu- 
nales,  etc. 

The  Hebrew  "  speaker  in  assemblies  "  declared  that 
there  is  no  new  thing  uncTer  the  sun,  and  affirmed  of 
a  thing  thought  to  be  new  that  it  hath  been  long  ago 
in  the  ages  which  were  before.  At  times  we  talk  of 
new  schools  of  art  and  literature  and  new  systems  of 
education  as  though  they  were  real  things,  and  yet 
when  we  begin  to  examine  the  old,  and 'note  a  compar- 
ison, we  find  that  the  supposed  new  is  surprisingly  like 
that  which  has  preceded,  and  that  in  all  branches  of 
modern  life  we  are  only  living  up  to  the  accomplish- 
ments and  the  promises  of  the  long  ago. 

47 


48  OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION. 

But  more  than  this,  the  development  of  a  later  age 
is  often  necessary  that  we  may  understand  the  full 
meaning  of  what  was  earlier  said  and  done.  Of 
genius,  it  may  be  affirmed  that  it  expresses  eternal 
truth,  but  in  a  language  often  unintelligible  to  its  own 
time.  It  is  only  the  unfolding  of  life  in  a  later  age 
which  gives  the  experience  from  which  can  be  under- 
stood the  larger  meaning  of  a  great  truth.  Poets  were 
long  ago  reputed  to  express  wise  things  which  they 
did  not  themselves  understand.  The  supreme  achieve- 
ment of  literature  is  the  universalizing  of  an  era — the 
projection  of  an  age,  and  the  binding  of  it  both  to  the 
past  and  the  future.  Thus  it  is  that  truly  great  writ- 
ings are  always  modern — thus  life  is  enlarging  and 
each  epoch  furnishes  that  which  enables  us  better  to 
understand  the  universal  truth  of  earlier  times. 

The  modern  loose-leaf  ledger,  and  card-index  led- 
ger systems  are  but  an  adaptation  of  the  clay-tablet 
method  of  keeping  accounts  practised  in  Babylonia 
more  than  four  thousand  years  ago,  and  the  Babylon- 
ian tablets  were  superior  to  the  modern  devices  in  that 
they  did  not  require  fire-proof  safes.  Seals,  witnesses, 
"  consideration,"  security,  and  many  other  phases  of 
modern  contract  proceedings  are  all  found  in  the  early 
dawn  of  history.  As  one  looks  further  he  finds  that 
many  so-called 'modern  business  customs  find  their 
precursors  and  their  suggestion  in  practices  of  the 
hoary  past. 

The  industries  of  antiquity  challenge  admiration  for 
artistic  conception,  and  skill  in  execution.  Weaving, 


OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION.  49 

dyeing,  carving,  and  metal  work  were  in  ancient  times 
so  marvelously  developed  as  to  give  suitability  to  the 
term  "  the  lost  arts." 

If  for  a  moment  we  turn  our  thoughts  to  the  eco- 
nomic organization  of  modern  society  there  is  little  to 
excite  our  admiration  by  way  of  newness.  As  econo- 
mists we  talk  of  trusts  as  an  essentially  modern  phe- 
nomenon, and  assert  that  they  are  the  consequence  of 
new  methods  in  the  production  and  exchange  of  goods, 
but  on  examination  we  find  that  the  monopoly  privi- 
lege has  been  bestowed  upon  their  favorites  by  rulers 
from  time  immemorial,  and  that  those  who  operated 
these  monopolies  were  actuated  by  the  same  motives 
that  lie  back  of  the  modern  trust.  The  Tudors  in  Eng- 
land gave  privileges  until  necessities  as  well  as  luxuries 
were  in  the  grasp  of  those  moved  by  their  own  greed 
rather  than  the  general  good.  Iron,  oil,  vinegar,  coal, 
leather,  yarn,  glass,  and  many  other  articles  were  in- 
cluded. No  sovereign  bestowed  monopolist  privileges 
more  freely  than  did  Elizabeth,  and  no  event  of  her 
marvelous  reign  is  more  striking  or  fraught  with 
larger  meaning  than  was  her  tardy  withdrawal  of  these 
privileges  on  petition  from  the  Commons. 

Legislation  for  the  regulation  of  monopolies  was 
enacted  in  the  time  of  the  First  James,  but  the  abuses 
did  not  disappear.  The  whole  question  was  later  dis- 
cussed by  Sir  John  Culpepper  in  a  speech  before  the 
Long  Parliament.  He  gave  an  extended  list  of  these 
privileges  and  particularized  as  to  their  influence, 
speaking  in  general  terms  that  present  anti-trust  agi- 


50  OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION. 

tators  might  find  suited  to  express  their  sentiments: 
"  They  are  a  nest  of  wasps  ...  a  swarm  of  vermin 
that  have  crept  over  the  land;  .  .  .  they  sup  in  our 
cup,  dip  in  our  dish,  sit  by  our  fire."  "  These,"  he 
said,  "  are  the  leeches  that  have  sucked  the  Common- 
wealth so  hard  that  it  is  almost  hectical."  A  case  still 
cited  as  precedent  was  brought  in  the  English  courts; 
it  was  to  dissolve  a  monopoly  for  the  sale  of  playing- 
cards,  and  as  reported  by  Coke  is  termed  "  the  Case 
of  Monopolies."  Late  decisions  to  dissolve  mergers 
and  the  like  are  in  accord  with  the  reasons  given  in 
the  report  of  Coke:  a  monopoly  in  restraint  is  against 
both  the  common  law  and  numerous  legislative  acts. 

But  provisions  for  the  control  of  monopolies  are 
older  than  the  rise  of  the  English  law.  The  economic 
conditions  from  which  monopolies  grew  were  in  the 
ancient  world  and  monopolies  have  existed  from  the 
earliest  historic  times.  Zeno,  the  Prefect  of  Constan- 
tinople, found  conditions  not  unlike  those  of  our  own 
day,  and  in  483  A.  D.  issued  an  edict  that  if  carried 
out  would  likely  have  made  him  the  greatest  force  for 
the  control  of  monopolies  of  which  we  have  any  knowl- 
edge. In  an  age  of  attempted  monopoly  control,  the 
message  from  Zeno  cannot  fail  to  interest : 

We  command  that  no  one  may  presume  to  ex- 
ercise a  monopoly  of  any  kind  of  clothing,  or  of 
fish,  or  any  other  thing  serving  for  food,  or  for  any 
other  use,  whatever  its  nature  may  be :  that  differ- 
ent kinds  of  merchandise  may  not  be  sold  at  a  less 
price  than  they  have  agreed  upon  among  them- 


OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION.  51 

selves.  Workmen  and  contractors  for  buildings, 
and  all  who  practice  other  professions,  and  con- 
tractors for  baths,  are  entirely  prohibited  from 
agreeing  together  that  no  one  may  complete  a  work 
contracted  for  by  another,  or  that  a  person  may 
prevent  one  who  has  contracted  for  a  work  from 
finishing  it ;  ...  and  if  any  one  shall  presume  to 
practice  a  monopoly,  let  his  property  be  forfeited 
and  himself  be  condemned  to  perpetual  exile. 

Nor  do  the  statements  above  made  detract  from  the 
interest  or  the  importance  of  the  present.  Truly  great 
work  in  literature,  music,  and  architecture  has  been 
characterized  by  a  singular  lack  of  originality.  The 
preeminent  literary  genius  of  the  English  race  was  so 
wanting  in  this  particular  that  his  authorship  has  been 
called  into  question.  Both  language  and  subject- 
matter  of  his  plays  follow  other  writings  which  had 
preceded.  In  addition  to  the  use  of  the  chronicles  of 
Holinshed  and  Hall,  and  the  North  Plutarch  which 
had  just  appeared,  Shakespeare  drew  largely  from 
legends  and  traditions  current  at  the  time  he  wrote, 
and  even  from  the  dramas  of  his  contemporaries.  This 
genius  did  not  "  invent "  situations  as  he  did  not 
create  language.  Nor  was  this  adopting  peculiar  to 
Shakespeare.  A  modern  scholar  has  found  the  single 
Eastern  tradition  of  the  Merchant  of  Tyre  which  was 
used  by  Shakespeare  in  at  least  a  dozen  languages  and 
literatures,  and  in  all  of  them  it  exists  with  but  slight 
variations.1 

1  Smyth,  Appolonius  of  Tyre,  Publications  of  American  Philosophi- 
cal Society. 


52  OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION. 

In  music  the  facts  are  not  less  striking.  Wagner 
did  not,  as  is  often  thought,  create  his  art  out  of  his 
own  personality ;  he  but  put  the  stamp  of  his  genius 
upon  much  that  preceded  him,  and  his  service  to  the 
world  was  in  his  ability  to  unify,  coordinate,  and  re- 
express  the  work  of  others. 

In  the  presence  of  great  architectural  triumphs  we 
can  well  understand  the  dependence  of  modern  archi- 
tecture upon  the  work  of  other  ages  and  other  peoples. 
We  have  sometimes  felt  that  architects  are  too  slavishly 
following  the  tastes  and  styles  of  earlier  times. 
Greek,  Italian,  Renaissance,  Gothic,  Spanish  and  Colo- 
nial are  terms  and  styles  known  even  to  the  uninitiated. 
Modern  buildings  are  largely  cast  in  the  moulds  of 
the  builders  of  the  long  ago. 

Modern  life  explains  ancient  life,  and  is  in  reality 
an  advance  upon  the  ancient.  This  inter-relation  and 
inter-dependence  of  past  and  present  may  thus  become 
a  unifying  principle  in  the  study  of  history,  for  ex- 
ample, and  when  it  is  adopted,  history  is  a  subject  of 
first  importance.  The  practical  value  of  this  subject 
has  been  questioned,  but  correct  notions  of  what 'his- 
tory is  will  promptly  remove  all  question.  The  past 
calls  forward  to  the  present  and  the  present  calls  back 
to  the  past  in  so  many  ways  that  history  is  found  to 
be  one;  and  thus  it  is  organically  related  in  all  of  its 
parts.  Many  of  the  so-called  problems  of  the  present 
have  been  met  in  the  past,  and  important  contributions 
made  towards  their  solution. 

Modern  developments  make  us  better  able  to  under- 


OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION.  53 

stand  the  life  of  the  past.  The  commercial  era  in 
which  we  are  living  has  contributed  the  data  to  make 
antiquity  real,  both  in  range  of  experience  and  interest. 
The  writer  found  a  new  flood  of  light  thrown  on  Greek 
tradition  and  history  when  he  came  to  a  study  of  the 
industry  and  commerce  of  Greece  as  a  part  of  the 
great  'world-movements  in  production  and  trade. 
Jason  and  his  Heroes  in  quest  of  the  Golden  Fleece 
indicate  the  early  commercial  spirit  of  the  Greeks  and 
their  interest  in  the  rich  products  of  the  Euxine  and 
the  lands  beyond.  Either  an  actual  fleece  used  as  a 
sieve  to  catch  the  particles  of  gold  carried  in  the  water, 
or  priceless  fabrics  "  woven  in  the  land  of  sunshine  " 
gave  the  basis  for  the  tradition.  The  Legends  of  Ce- 
crops,  his  settlement  at  Athens,  and  the  introduction 
of  agriculture,  embody  and  symbolize  the  Egyptian 
influence  in  early  Greek  history ;  similarly,  the  Legend 
of  Cadmus  and  the  teaching  of  the  alphabet  indicate 
the  Phoenician  influence.  All  of  us  have  been  mysti- 
fied by  the  Trojan  War  stories,  but  when  we  see  in 
that  war  an  early  illustration  of  the  conflict  between 
the  East  and  the  West,  a  conflict  still  going  on,  the 
war  becomes  more  real.  The  rape  of.  Helen  was  an 
incident  of  the  frequent  Trojan  forays  into  the  Aegean, 
with  the  plundering  of  property  and  the  carrying 
away  of  Greeks  as  slaves.  The  Greeks  were  not  safe 
so  long  as  the  powerful  Trojan  city  occupied  the  out- 
posts of  Asia  and  fronted  Europe.  Troas  had  a  stra- 
tegic and  commercial  importance  much  greater  in  the 
ancient  world  than  has  Constantinople  in  modern 


54  OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION. 

times.  All  Greece  did  not  go  forth  to  recover  one 
woman  who  had  gone  wrong,  and  to  punish  her  ab- 
ductor; Greece  was  fighting  the  battle  for  national  ex- 
istence, and  indeed  for  the  existence  of  a  Western  civi- 
lization. It  was  this  conception  of  the  Trojan  War 
that  led  a  modern  writer  to  say  that  when  understood 
in  all  of  its  relations  it  was  the  one  event  of  ancient 
history ;  but  it  is  also  an  event  of  interest  to  us,  and 
one  which  our  interests  enables  us  to  understand. 

These  and  other  traditions  were  born  in  the  infancy 
of  a  race  and  of  a  civilization.  At  such  a  time  an  in- 
terest could  best  be  understood  by  impersonating  it. 
Nature  too  was  personal.  The  city  of  Athens  had  a 
tower  of  the  winds  in  which  not  only  the  wind  in  gen- 
eral, but  the  different  kinds  of  wind,  were  represented 
by  different  figures.  In  a  family  well  known  to  the 
writer  are  young  children  to  whom  rain,  wind,  thun- 
der, sun  and  moon  are  persons,  and  always  referred 
to  as  Mr.  Wind,  Mr.  Rain,  Mr.  Thunder,  etc.  Wind 
and  rain  for  these  children  are  made  to  sing  a  lullaby, 
while  the  thunder's  roar  and  the  lightning's  flash  have 
no  terrors.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  children  will 
continue  to  impersonate  nature's  forces,  but  in  early 
years  these  forces  are  actual  persons.  Nor  need  we 
go  on  holding  blindly  to  the  childhood  traditions  of 
the  Greeks  and  other  peoples.  Neither  should  these 
traditions  be  dismissed  as  foolish.  The  personality  in 
them  embodied  tendencies  and  influences  of  a  period  of 
development.  The  interests  of  recent  years  are  en- 
abling us  to  retain  the  traditions  and  discern  their  real 


OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION.  55 

meaning  by  resolving  the  personalities  into  the  forces 
which  lay  back  of  them  and  which  they  typify. 

Our  education  is  always  in  danger  of  becoming  sub- 
servient to  what  has  been  termed  "  the  tyranny  of  yes- 
terday." Teachers  as  a  class  are  likely  to  be  unpro- 
gressive,  and  this  for  the  reason  that  they  feel  that 
they  must  justify  themselves,  and  to  do  this  they  seek 
to  perpetuate  the  education  which  they  received.  Con- 
sistency is  admirable,  but,  as  pointed  out  by  Emerson, 
under  certain  circumstances  it  may  become  the  "  hob- 
goblin of  little  minds."  To  profit  by  the  experience 
of  the  old  education  does  not  mean  that  the  old  is  to  be 
continued  unchanged ;  rather,  experience  teaches  that 
means  should  be  adapted  to  ends  and,  when  the 
ends  to  be  attained  are  different,  perforce  the  means 
by  which  these  are  to  be  reached  should  be  modified. 

We  should  consider  anew  the  term,  A  Liberal  Edu- 
cation, and  have  regard  for  the  elements  which 
enter  into  it.  What  has  preceded  can  but  add  em- 
phasis to  a  closing  statement — the  new  in  our  system 
of  education  should  include  much  that  has  been  long 
established ;  and  the  so-called  old  finds  new  interest 
and  added  value  from  having  regard  for  present  in- 
terest and  life.  Thus  the  new  education  and  the  old 
education  tend  to  come  together.  There  should  be 
much  less  of  difference  than  is  commonly  supposed  be- 
tween what  has  been  termed  "  cultural  education  "  and 
the  "  education  for  practical  affairs."  Educators  are, 
after  all,  dealing  with  the  same  fundamental  problems, 
and  as  it  would  be  lamentable  for  those  promoting  ap- 


56  OLD  AND  NEW  EDUCATION. 

plied  education  to  cut  themselves  from  the  influence  of 
culture,  so  those  fostering  cultural  education  will  find 
their  task  easier  and  more  effective  by  increased  regard 
for  the  conditions  and  requirements  of  the  time  in 
which  we  live,  and  for  the  practical  elements  in  earlier 
times. 

One  training  for  culture  and  another  for  practical 
affairs  would  inevitably  lead  to  class  differences,  and 
is  un-American.  All  education  should  be  but  part  of 
one  education,  the  purpose  of  which  is  the  training  of 
citizens.  Cultural  education  will  be  the  more  effective 
with  some  of  the  spirit  of  the  practical ;  practical  edu- 
cation needs  the  breath  of  culture.  The  wine  of  our 
historic  culture  can,  and  should,  be  handed  on  in  the 
new  bottles  of  economic  thought  and  life,  and  thus  we 
may  have  the  commercializing  of  the  older  humanities, 
and  the  liberalizing  of  the  present  industrialism  and 
commercialism.  A  cultural  education  need  not  be 
vague  and  impractical,  cut  off  entirely  from  present 
life;  nor  need  a  practical  education  be  devoid  of  cul- 
ture. 


IV. 

SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

AT  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  ap- 
peared in  this  country  and  in  England  successive  edi- 
tions of  a  work  entitled,  "A  Brief  Retrospect  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century."  The  author  was  the  celebrated 
theologian  Samuel  Miller,  then  a  pastor  in  New  York 
City,  and  later  for  many  years  a  professor  in  Prince- 
ton Theological  Seminary.  Miller  is  well  remem- 
bered as  a  controversialist,  and  is  still  an  authority  on 
many  phases  of  church  polity,  but  his  Retrospect,  in- 
teresting and  valuable  as  it  is,  seems  to  have  been 
quite  forgotten. 

The  Retrospect  was  a  labor  of  love  growing  from  a 
single  discourse,  first  to  a  projected  volume,  and  then 
to  two  volumes.  The  treatment  indicates  a  wide  range 
of  interest,  unusual  insight,  and  pleasing  expression. 
As  one  reads  the  Retrospect  he  deliberates  which  to 
admire  more  in  this  man  thirty-four  years  of  age  who 
was  the  product  of  an  earlier  educational  regime — the 
fortitude  with  which  he  undertook  his  task,  or  the  skill 
with  which  he  accomplished  it. 

Judged  by  present  standards  of  literary  style,  and 
accuracy  and  breadth  of  scholarship,  Samuel  Miller's 
Retrospect  is  a  remarkable  work.  On  its  appearance 

57 


58  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

its  reviewers  called  it  a  "  useful  and  judicious  com- 
pilation," and  it  was  said  that  it  won  the  applause  of 
two  hemispheres.  Certain  it  is  that  the  New  York 
edition  of  1803  was  followed  by  a  second  New  York 
edition  in  1805,  and  by  a  London  edition  in  the  same 
year. 

THE   AUTHOR. 

Samuel  Miller  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman,  by  whom 
his  early  education  was  directed.  He  was  admitted  to 
the  senior  class  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
graduated  with  first  honors  in  1789.  After  a  course 
in  divinity  he  was  called  to  a  pastorate  in  the  colle- 
giate churches  of  New  York  City,  and  served  in  that 
capacity  for  some  ten  years.  In  1812  Dr.  Miller 
preached  the  installation  sermon  for  the  first  professor 
appointed  in  the  Princeton  Theological  Seminary,  and 
the  next  year  he  was  called  to  the  second  professorship 
in  this  Seminary,  a  position  which  he  held  until  his 
death  in  1850. 

A  striking  characteristic  of  Samuel '  Miller,  evi- 
denced alike  in  his  writings  and  his  personal  relations, 
was  his  courtesy  and  kindliness.  He  was  described  as 
"  bland  and  attractive,"  possessing  "  graceful  facility," 
and  withal  as  being  gentle  and  genial.  For  more 
than  a  generation  he  was  to  the  students  of  Princeton 
and  the  church  of  America  the  beau  ideal  of  a  Chris- 
tian gentleman,  and  his  influence  abides  through  his 
treatise  on  "  Clerical  Manners  and  Habits." 

Miller's  published  works  make  a  long  list.  To  biog- 
raphy he  added  books  on  doctrinal  subjects  and  many 


SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  59 

essays  on  the  conflicting  religious  opinions  that  stirred 
the  first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Nor  was  he 
wanting  in  breadth  of  interest ;  his  sermons  on  special 
occasions  are  numerous  and  much  to  his  credit. 

ELECTRICITY  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 

From  the  pages  of  the  Retrospect  we  gather  that 
the  present  "  age  of  electricity  "  is  debtor  more  largely 
than  we  usually  think  to  the  years  back  of  1801.  It  is 
true  that  two  hundred  years  ago  electricity  hardly  had 
a  place  in  the  so-called  system  of  natural  philosophy, 
Miller  points  out  that  Dr.  Halley  began  the  eighteenth 
century  by  publishing  a  chart  showing  the  variation 
of  the  magnetic  needle;  this  was  later  re-issued, 
Churchman  publishing  the  third  edition  of  such  a  chart 
in  1800.  In  1729  Stephen  Gray  distinguished  funda- 
mentally between  electric  conductivity  and  non-con- 
ductivity. Watson  later  established  that  friction  only 
collected,  and  did  not  produce  electricity,  and  Dr. 
Knight  discovered  an  artificial  means  of  making  mag- 
nets in  1744,  thus  rendering  the  compass  more  con- 
venient and  useful.  In  1754  experiments  at  Leyden 
made  it  possible  to  collect  electrical  fluid  in  a  jar  and 
discharge  it  by  means  of  a  conductor.  Soon  after  this 
the  Leyden  jar  was  improved  by  bringing  several  jars 
together,  thus  increasing  the  force. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  century  experiments  had 
been  completed  showing  the  effects  of  electricity  on 
animal  and  vegetable  bodies,  and,  says  our  author,  "  it 
is  already  established  as  an  important  article  of  materia 


60  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

medica."  Franklin  "  snatched  the  lightning  from  the 
clouds"  in  1752.  Mesmer  put  forth  his  famous  sys- 
tem of  animal  magnetism  about  1766,  and  in  1774 
Hehl  enunciated  the  idea  of  sympathy  between  the 
human  body  and  the  magnet.  In  the  latter  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century  Volta  invented  the  condenser 
for  electrical  fluid,  and  in  1791  Galvani,  a  physician  of 
Bologna,  showed  by  experiment  the  connection  be- 
tween what  formerly  -had  been  called  "  animal  elec- 
tricity "  and  electricity.  It  was  pointed  out  that  the 
former  was  too  narrow,  and  for  it  there  was  adopted 
the  word  galvanism.  In  1800  Volta  perfected  his  de- 
vice with  plates  of  silver,  zinc,  etc.,  for  condensing, 
retaining  and  communicating  galvanic  influence,  and 
thus  that  indispensable  agent  in  the  application  of 
electricity,  the  battery,  came  into  use. 

Our  author  adds  to  the  foregoing  account  something 
of  the  work  of  Davy,  Cruikshank  and  others  in  im- 
proving the  discoveries  and  inventions  enumerated. 

It  is  evident  that  the  century  'reviewed  by  Samuel 
Miller  was  notable  for  discoveries  in  electricity.  The 
very  terminology  of  the  science  is  a  tribute  to  the 
greatness  of  the  scientists  of  that  age,  but  we  have  felt 
that  theirs  were  achievements  in  the  realm  of  pure 
science  while  the  succeeding  hundred  years  were  to 
see  the  same  knowledge  brought  to  the  use  of  men. 
Even  so  eminent  an  authority  as  Elihu  Thompson 
states  that  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  application  of 
electricity  to  the  useful  arts  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

But  in  its  accounts  of  the  practical  application  of 


SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  61 

electricity  the  Retrospect  now  under  review  tries  our 
belief.  The  electrical  telegraph  was  treated  as  seri- 
ously as  though  it  were  a  complete  invention.  Some- 
thing like  this,  we  are  told,  had  long  been  used  for 
signals  in  civil  and  military  emergencies,  but  as  the 
statement  goes,  it  was  not  reduced  to  a  regular  system 
until  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century.  We  are 
further  informed  that  after  the  French  Revolution, 
electricity  was  generally  applied  to  useful  purposes, 
Says  our  chronicler,  in  1799  Jonathan  Grout  of  Massa- 
chusetts invented  a  telegraph  essentially  different  from 
any  then  in  use  in  Great  Britain.  This  was  put  in 
operation  between  Boston  and  Martha's  Vineyard,  and 
questions  were  asked  and  answers  received  within  the 
space  of  ten  minutes.  The  use  of  electricity  as  an 
agent  in  war,  in  commerce,  for  the  prevention  of  dis- 
aster, and  to  serve  the  purposes  of  statecraft  are  noted, 
and  Miller  adds,  "  How  great  importance  for  the  pres- 
ent, and  how  much  more  so  for  the  future!" 

THE   ATMOSPHERE. 

Atmosphere  as  a  scientific  study  had  been  first  culti- 
vated in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  experiments  of 
Torricelli  in  that  period  demonstrated  that  air  is  a 
gravitating  substance,  but  it  remained  for  the  eigh- 
teenth century  to  improve  both  the  barometer  and  the 
air-pump.  Anderson,  Franklin  and  Count  Rumford 
are  credited  with  inventions  and  improvements  in  the 
construction  of  houses,  chimneys  and  stoves  which  re- 
sulted in  the  saving  of  fuel  and  adding  to  the  com- 


62  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

forts  of  living.  Absorption  of  water  into  the  air 
seems  not  to  have  been  well  understood  until  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century;  in  1765  Hugh 
Hamilton  read  an  essay  before  the  Royal  Society  in 
which  he  set  forth  the  general  theory  of  evaporation. 
Priestley's  famous  discovery  of  oxygen  occurred  in 
1774,  thus  making  clear  the  nature  of  combustion, 
breathing,  etc. 

In  1782  balloons  from  heated  air  were  used,  though 
in  the  next  year  hydrogen  gas  was  substituted  for  hot 
air.  Many  of  these  balloons  had  been  used  before 
Samuel  Miller  wrote,  though,  as  he  said,  the  only  prac- 
tical purposes  of  them  were  for  meteorogical  observa- 
tions and  for  inspecting  camps,  fortifications,  etc.,  of 
an  enemy  in  time  of  war.  In  aerial  navigation  we 
have  made  great  advance  upon  Samuel  Miller's  time, 
although  we  still  speak  in  his  language  of  hope :  "Who 
can  tell  but  that  another  century  may  give  rise  to  such 
improvements  that  migrating  in  the  air  may  be  as  safe, 
as  easy,  and  as  subservient  to  practical  purposes  as 
migrating  on  the  ocean?" 

PROGRESS  OF  MEDICINE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 

Miller's  Retrospect  gave  much  space  to  medicine; 
its  relative  position  to  other  branches  of  science  was 
pointed  out,  and  its  membership  at  that  time  was  found 
to  "  constitute  a  large  class  of  the  learned  world." 
The  great  progress  in  medical  science  in  the  eighteenth 
century  depended  upon  improvements  in  chemistry 
and  natural  history,  and  better  communication  which 


SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  63 

made  possible  the  handing  on  of  results  of  experi- 
ments and  the  exchange  of  opinions.  It  was  in  the 
later  seventeenth  century  that  there  was  discovered  the 
device  of  making  "  preparations  "  for  dissecting  by 
filling  the  vascular  system  with  a  bright-colored  wax. 
The  lymphatics  and  thoracic  duct  were  earlier  known, 
but  the  human  absorbent  system,  or  the  office  of  the 
lymphatics,  was  explained  first  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Two  things  characterize  the  study  of  anatomy 
in  the  eighteenth  century :  the  use  of  preparations  and 
attention  to-  comparative  anatomy. 

In  physiology,  the  eighteenth  century  is  said  to 
have  inherited  "  a  chaos  of  the  wildest  and  most  dis- 
cordant principles."  Mechanics  had  come  into  medi- 
cine in  the  seventeenth  century  in  the  teachings  of  a 
mathematical  school,  i.  e.,  that  muscles  are  cords  and 
bones  levers,  and  that  running,  walking,  swimming, 
etc.,  are  mechanical,  a  theory  which  indicates  the 
strong  hold  of  mathematics  in  the  period  following  the 
brilliant  work  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  Boerhaave  and 
Haller  gathered  the  preceding  notions  and  system- 
atized them,  the  latter  earning  the  title  of  "  father  of 
the  science  of  physiology."  Haller  in  the  eighteenth 
century  also  discovered  the  irritability  of  the  muscular 
fiber  and  the  contractile  power  of  muscles,  a  property 
by  which  muscles  become  shorter  and  recede  from 
stimuli.  This  quality  was  regarded  as  an  inherent, 
independent,  and  permanent  property  of  living  fiber. 
Whytt  later  put  forth  that  this  irritability  was  due  to 
a  nervous  phenomenon,  though  on  this  theory  Miller 
did  not  look  with  special  favor. 


64  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

In  the  knowledge  of  such  physiological  processes  as 
respiration,  digestion,  procreation,  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury saw  much  advance.  Earlier  the  chief  purpose  of 
respiration  had  been  thought  to  be  the  production  of 
the  voice.  But,  says  Miller,  much  of  the  true  function 
of  the  lungs  came  to  be  known  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. '  The  mystery  of  respiration  "  was  shown  by 
the  then  modern  science  of  chemistry,  for  with  the 
discovery  of  oxygen  and  the  analysis  of  the  atmos- 
phere it  was  possible  to  explain  respiration.  Dr. 
Priestley  contributed  to  this  explanation  by  showing 
that  there  is  a  quantity  of  carbonic  acid  gas  in  the  air, 
after  it  has  been  in  the  lungs,  that  had  not  been  there 
before.  It  was  not  until  Priestley  had  discovered  that 
the  venous  blood  acquires  a  scarlet  color  when  brought 
into  contact  with  oxygen  gas,  and  that  arterial  blood 
becomes  purple  when  brought  into  contact  with  hy- 
drogen gas;  that  oxygen  gas  instantly  gives  venous 
blood  the  color  of  arterial,  and  that  hydrogen,  on  the 
contrary,  gives  arterial  blood  the  color  of  venous — it 
was  not  till  this  discovery,  says  our  author,  that  scien- 
tists even  began  an  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of 
respiration.  Dr.  Priestley  enclosed  blood  in  a  bladder, 
and  by  the  passage  of  oxygen  through  the  moistened 
coats  showed  the  effect  of  oxygen  and  the  wayt  it 
passes  into  the  blood-vessels  in  the  lungs. 

The  treatment  of  procreation  shows  the  relations  of 
science  and  religion  at  that  time.  The  doctrine  of 
"  equivocal  generation  "  of  the  seventeenth  century 
was  still  adhered  to  by  those  who  would  make  possible 


SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  65 

a  belief  in  the  existence  of  man  without  a  creating 
God.  Miller  set  forth  the  present  generally  accepted 
theories  of  inception  of  life,  and  adds,  "  Every  new 
ray  of  light  on  this  question  is  a  new  demonstration 
of  the  absurdity  of  atheism  and  of  the  existence  of  a 
First  Great  Cause." 

In  the  theory  and  practice  of  medicine  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  the  progress  was  greater  than  in  physi- 
ology. Our  author  sketches  the  systems  of  medicine 
from  the  revival  of  learning,  when  was  quite  generally 
accepted  the  wonder-working  practice  known  as  Ga- 
lenic; he  follows  with  an  account  of  the  conflict  of  the. 
followers  of  the  preceding  with  the  chemical  physi- 
cians of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  traces  the  rise  of 
"  humoral  pathology."  Boerhaave,  following  the  lead 
of  the  mathematical  school,  attempted  to  explain  the 
phenomena  of  health  and  sickness  on  mathematical 
principles.  Stahl  came  next  with  the  theory  that  there 
is  a  rational  soul  that  presides  over  -all  and  governs  all, 
thus  controlling  the  economy  of  sickness  and  health. 
Present  dangerous  medical  heresies,  such  as  Faith 
Cure  and  Christian  Science,  have  their  counterpart — 
perhaps  their  suggestion — in  the  eighteenth-century 
system  of  Stahl. 

Two  other  theories  of  medicine  described  at  some 
length  deserve  mention :  they  are  those  of  Erasmus 
Darwin  and  Sir  John  Pringle.  Darwin  taught  that 
every  part  of  the  animal  is  a  living  principle,  has  sen- 
sorial  power,  and  that  disease  arises  as  a  proximate 
cause  from  what  was  termed  the  exuberance,  deficiency 


66  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

or  retrograde  action  of  this  sensorium.  Pringle  in  a 
theory  of  fevers  set  forth  that  miasmata  and  conta- 
gion act  as  a  ferment  on  animal  fluids.  Important 
as  this  was  in  approaching  present  medical  theory 
based  on  the  new  science  of  bacteriology,  it  was  dis- 
missed by  Miller  as  vague  and  improbable. 

The  chief  medical  triumphs  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury were  over  contagious  diseases,  the  reduction  of 
their  frequency  and  their  malignity.  Leprosy  was 
almost  banished  from  the  civilized  world ;  but  the  two 
diseases  that  gave  most  concern  were  fevers  and  small- 
pox. Theories  of  fevers  were  quite  as  numerous  as 
were  systems  of  medicine,  and  they  found  their  most 
modern  expression  in  that  of  Sir  John  Pringle  noted 
above.  The  supreme  achievement  in  dealing  with 
fevers  was  in  the  treatment  known  as  cool  regime  set 
forth  by  Currie  of  Liverpool.  By  this  there  were 
added  to  cool  air  and  cool  drinks  the  external  applica- 
tion of  cold  water — again  a  close  approach  to  present 
approved  modern  practice. 

Clearly  the  greatest  medical  success  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  was  the  control  over  smallpox,  a  control 
fairly  complete  in  that  era.  The  most  cursory  exam- 
ination of  the  newspapers,  memoirs,  and  books  of  travel 
of  the  time  indicate  how  frequent  and  deadly  small- 
pox had  been ;  and  taking  into  consideration  its  prac- 
tical disappearance,  one  can  get  some  notion  of  how 
great  our  debt  is  to  those  who  were  instrumental  in 
bringing  this  about.  It  is  said  that  inoculation  as  a 
preventive  had  been  introduced  into  Constantinople 


SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  67 

towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  having 
earlier  been  practiced  by  the  Circassians  in  rearing 
their  children  for  the  Turkish  seraglio.  Lady  Mon- 
tague introduced  the  practice  into  England  by  having 
her  children  inoculated.  By  1721  inoculation  began 
to  be  generally  adopted,  coming  into  vogue  after  it 
was  performed  on  the  children  of  the  royal  family. 
The  opposition,  we  are  told,  was  with  "  zeal  and  in- 
temperance," but  by  the  middle  of  the  century  inocu- 
lation was  considered  as  established. 

In  1721  Dr.  Boylston  of  Boston  inoculated  his  chil- 
dren and  servants,  though  to  this  there  was  violent 
opposition  on  the  part  of  the  medical  profession,  the 
clergy,  and  the  public.  Dr.  Boylston's  experiments 
were  regarded  as  a  species  of  murder,  and  for  a  time 
his  life  was  endangered,  so  bitter  was  the  feeling 
against  him.  The  famous  Dr.  William  Douglass  was 
of  the  opposition  party ;  a  newspaper  war  was  carried 
on,  in  which  the  New  England  Courant  took  sides  with 
Douglass  and  his  following.  We  are  told  that  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  "  employed  his  opening  talents  in 
favor  of  the  same  deluded  party."  But  inoculation 
increased,  and  from  New  England  it  was  adopted  in 
New  York  and  Philadelphia,  and  by  1 783  had  reached 
to  Charleston,  South  Carolina.  By  that  time,  Miller 
says,  it  was  generally  accepted  by  the  intelligent  and 
better  classes. 

Much  of  the  earlier  opposition  was  removed  by  Dr. 
Jenner's  discovery  in  1798  by  which,  with  the  use  of 
vaccine  of  cowpox,  there  was  brought  on  a  milder  and 


68  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

less  dangerous  form  of  the  disease.  The  introduction 
of  cowpox  is  termed  the  "  most  memorable  improve- 
ment ever  made  in  the  practice  of  physic."  The 
milder  form  of  the  disease  gave  such  effectual  security 
that  Miller  could  say  that  by  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  the  scourge  of  smallpox  no  longer 
excited  the  terror  of  communities. 

GEOGRAPHY   AND   NAVIGATION. 

In  geographical  discovery  the  eighteenth  century 
almost  eclipses  the  much  famed  sixteenth.  At  its  be- 
ginning, one-half  of  the  earth  was  unknown  or  so 
little  known  as  to  be  of  slight  value;  such  territories 
as  Russia  and  Turkey,  for  example,  had  been  closed 
to  Western  Europe.  In  the  growth  of  geographical 
knowledge  in  the  eighteenth  century,  Russia  and  Eng- 
land contributed  much  the  greater  part.  In  making  a 
new  Russia  known  to  the  world,  Peter  the  Great  gave 
acquaintance  with  a  vast  empire  in  two  continents. 
George  I  in  England  revived  interest  in  geography  in 
that  country.  Two  purposes  animated  Englishmen : 
to  reach  the'  Orient  by  a  North  Sea  passage,  and  to 
explore  lands  in  the  South  Sea.  At  the  opening  of 
the  period  the  continent  south  of  the  equator  was  terra 
Australis  incognita.  The  most  distinguished  of  the 
English  voyagers  was  Captain  James  Cook,  of  whom 
our  reviewer  says :  "  Science  and  humanity  were  more 
indebted  to  him  than  to  any  other  in  the  same  line 
since  Columbus." 

Out  of  geographical  discovery  the  eighteenth  cen- 


SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  69 

*•<*• 

tury  saw  additions  to  science:  new  light  on  the  the- 
ories of  the  tides  and  winds;  better  understanding  of 
magnetic  variations;  advanced  knowledge  of  mineral- 
ogy, botany,  and  zoology ;  "  collections  of  curiosities  " 
brought  together  as  museums ;  better  intercourse 
among  peoples  with  the  extension  of  trade;  the  intro- 
duction of  new  articles  of  consumption ;  and  finally, 
an  advanced  knowledge  of  antiquities.  "  The  enlarge- 
ment of  geographical  knowledge  during  the  late  cen- 
tury has  led  to  an  increase  of  the  comforts  and  elegan- 
cies of  life  in  almost  every  part  of  the  civilized  world. 
By  this  means  the  productions  of  every  climate  have 
become  known  and  enjoyed  in  every  other;  the  inven- 
tions and  improvements  of  one  country  have  been  com- 
municated to  the  most  distant  regions;  and  the  com- 
forts of  living,  and  the  refinement  of  luxury,  have 
gained  a  degree  of  prevalence  among  mankind  greatly 
beyond  all  former  precedent.  Never,  assuredly,  in 
any  former  age,  were  so  many  of  the  natural  produc- 
tions and  the  manufactures  of  different  countries  en- 
joyed by  so  large  a  portion  of  the  human  race  as  at 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century." 

In  furthering  knowledge  of  the  world,  improved 
navigation  played  an  important  part.  The  eighteenth 
century  saw  ships  built  for  sailing  power  as  well  as 
for  carrying  capacity;  the  mariner's  compass  was  im- 
proved by  the  invention  of  artificial  magnets ;  and  the 
quadrant  was  invented  and  largely  introduced  for  tak- 
ing bearings  at  sea. 

Horrors  of  the  sea  in  earlier  ages  were  almost  re- 


70  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

moved  by  improved  diet  and  medical  science.  Scu/vy 
on  shipboard  was  reduced  by  the  use  of  citric  acid,  what 
was  termed  a  "  late  method  "  of  crystallizing  it  having 
been  discovered.  Captain  Cook  is  credited  with  being 
the  first  to  reduce  the  principles  of  nautical  medicine 
to  practice.  Ventilators  are  said  to  have  been  intro- 
duced into  ships  for  the  first  time  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  resulting  at  once  in  improved  health  of  sea- 
men and  better  preservation  of  cargoes  and  ships' 
timbers. 

INDUSTRY   AND   ART. 

A  recent  writer  on  the  nineteenth  century  character- 
izes it  as  a  period  of  extraordinary  progress  in  man's 
gaining  control  over  the  forces  of  nature,  and  declares 
that  in  transportation,  in  the  handicrafts,  and  in  the 
general  subjection  of  the  elements  to  the  service  of 
men,  more  progress  was  made  in  the  last  one  hundred 
years  than  in  all  the  preceding  eras  of  recorded  time. 
But  Samuel  Miller  might,  with  equal  show  of  truth, 
have  said  the  same  of  the  century  which  he  reviewed. 
The  eighteenth  century  saw  much  of  the  application 
of  science  to  every-day  life.  The  great  industrial 
revolution  which  has  wrought  such  marvelous  changes 
in  our  economy  is  based  on  improvements  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  and  began  its  work  before  that  cen- 
tury's close.  The  seventeen-hundreds  saw  the  cutting 
of  nails  substituted  for  hammering  them  on  an  anvil ; 
it  saw  also  the  movable  spinning  frame  and  the 
power-loom.  To  make  these  effective,  formidable 


SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  71 

difficulties  in  the  use  of  steam  for  power  were  over- 
come. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  improvements  in  printing 
were  marked.  Better  methods  of  making  type  were 
devised,  fac-simile  reproduction  as  an  art  was  invented 
and  stereotyped  plates  were  first  successfully  cast. 

Agriculture  saw  notable  progress  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  Such  topics  as  the  physiology  of  vegetables 
and  the  chemistry  of  soils  were  seriously  considered. 
Selecting,  rearing  and  caring  for  stock  became  a 
science;  the  naturalization  of  plants  attracted  atten- 
tion ;  the  influence  of  light  on  vegetation  was  investi- 
gated, and  new  fertilizers,  as  gypsum,  manure,  etc., 
were  introduced.  As  early  as  1 760  "  horse  hoeing  and 
drill  husbandry  "  were  adopted,  thus  "  making  a  grand 
era  in  agriculture." 

In  fine  arts,  as  in  those  termed  mechanical,  the  eigh- 
teenth century  was  notable.  In  portrait-painting  we 
are  to  reckon  with  such  names  as  Joshua  Reynolds, 
Benjamin  West,  John  C.  Copley,  Gilbert  Stuart,  and 
John  Trumbull.  The  great  original  in  comic  paint- 
ing, the  man  who  is  said  to  have  composed  comedies 
no  less  than  Moliere,  William  Hogarth,  did  his  work 
in  the  same  hundred  years  as  did  the  allegorical 
painter  KaurFman.  To  make  the  record  at  all  com- 
plete there  should  be  added  an  account  of  the  work  of 
Reeves,  who  in  1778  gave  an  improved  method  of  pre- 
paring water-colors;  and  later  the  ingenious,  though 
simple,  device  for  etching  on  glass  by  means  of  wax 
and  acid. 


72  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

LITERARY  PRODUCTIONS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 

Literary  and  scientific  associations  were  relatively 
more  important  factors  in  the  one  hundred  years  pre- 
ceding 1 80 1  than  they  were  in  those  following.  In 
the  earlier  century  the  American  Philosophical  Society 
had  been  presided  over  by  Benjamin  Franklin,  David 
Rittenhouse  and  Thomas  Jefferson.  This  society  was 
followed  in  its  organization  by  the  American  Academy 
of  Arts  and  Sciences  in  Boston,  and  later  a  similar 
society  in  New  Haven.  The  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society  had  been  organized  and  begun  its  work,  and 
agricultural  societies  were  established  in  every  part  of 
the  Union.  These  various  societies,  with  the  publica- 
tion of  their  memoirs  and  transactions  rendered  much 
service  in  the  cause  of  learning. 

The  eighteenth  century  was  a  pioneer  in  the  publica- 
tion of  dictionaries,  encyclopedias,  and  similar  works 
of  reference.  An  early  important  encyclopedia  was 
by  Ephraim  Chambers,  in  two  volumes,  published  in 
1728.  A  second  edition  of  the  "Encyclopaedia  Britan- 
nica  "  was  completed  in  ten  volumes  in  1783,  and  en- 
larged to  eighteen  volumes  in  1797.  Thomas  Dobson, 
a  Philadelphia  printer  brought  out  an  American  edi- 
tion, based  on  the  one  of  1 797.  This  was  with  the 
now  familiar,  "  valuable  additions  and  corrections," 
and  it  was  said  to  contain  "  much  important  informa- 
tion respecting  the  United  States,  not  in  the  British 
edition."  In  the  eighteenth  century  it  first  became 
common  to  publish  dictionaries  of  special  industries 


•  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  73 

and  trades,  such  for  example  as  gardening,  agricul- 
ture, commerce,  law,  mathematics,  chemistry,  mineral- 
ogy, botany,  painting,  and  music. 

As  a  classicist,  Miller  lamented  the  decadence  of  the 
classics,  which  decadence  had  resulted,  as  he  believed, 
in  a  scholarship  less  profound,  and  less  exact;  but  he 
pays  a  tribute  to  the  "  nations  lately  become  literary," 
giving  much  credit  to  Germany,  France  and  England. 
The  period  was  one  rich  in  translations  from  the 
Greek  and  Latin  literatures,  and  it  was  in  this  century 
that  the  literary  merit  of  great  translations  was  first 
generally  recognized. 

The  Retrospect  notes  the  world's  debt  to  Addison 
for  his  ease  and  polish  of  literary  style,  to  Swift  for 
his  purity  and  precision,  and  to  Pope  for  his  mechan- 
ical accuracy.  It  is  proud  of  the  ponderous  scholarship 
of  Johnson;  of  the  work  of  Richardson,  Fielding, 
Smollett,  Goldsmith,  and  Sterne  in  imaginative  litera- 
ture; of  Burke  and  Bishop  Watson  in  oration  and 
essay.  It  gives  high  place  to  Lindley  Murray's  Eng- 
lish Grammar,  the  service  of  which,  we  are  told,  was 
so  great  as  to  need  no  eulogium.  Nor  does  it  over- 
look the  work  of  Hume,  Robertson,  and  Gibbon  in 
history. 

Periodical  publications  in  the  nature  of  reviews  and 
monthlies  multiplied,  and  of  them  Miller  could  say : 
"  They  form  the  principal  means  of  diffusing  knowl- 
edge through  every  part  of  the  civilized  world ;  they 
convey,  in  an  abridged  and  agreeable  manner,  the 
contents  of  many  ponderous  volumes,  and  frequently 


74  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

supersede  the  appearance  of  such  volumes,  and  they 
record  every  species  of  information,  from*  the  most 
sublime  investigations  of  science  to  the  most  trifling 
concerns  of  amusement.  When  the  future  historian 
shall  desire  to  obtain  a  correct  view  of  the  literature 
and  manners  of  the  period,  he  will  probably  resort  to 
periodical  publications  of  the  day." 

It  was  in  the  periodicals  of  the  eighteenth  century 
that  criticism  first  "  began  to  brandish  its  formidable 
weapon."  This  era  is  contrasted  with  earlier  ones  in 
which  the  unsuccessful  author  reckoned  only  with  the 
publisher  or  printer,  and  fell  into  oblivion.  Now  he 
found  the  review  arraigning  him  at  a  public  tribunal 
as  an  offender. 

The  "  Gentlemen's  Magazine  "  was  established  in 
1731,  Franklin's  "  General  Magazine"  in  1741,  "The 
Monthly  Review  "  in  1756,  and  the  "  London  Review  " 
in  1775.  These  gave  notices  of  publications,  printed 
abstracts  and  criticisms  of  new  books,  cited  from  for- 
eign works,  etc.  Miller  says  of  their  influence,  that 
they  excited  attention,  diffused  knowledge  with  a  taste 
for  reading,  and  cultivated  a  spirit  of  criticism.  By 
them  learning  was  said  to  have  such  a  popular  cast  as 
to  descend  from  the  shelves  of  the  polite  scholar  and 
to  emerge  from  the  closet  of  the  philosopher.  Closely 
related  to  the  foregoing  were  essays  in  the  form  of 
periodicals,  such  as  "  The  Tatler,"  "  The  Spectator," 
"The  Guardian,"  "The  Rambler,"  "The  Idler," 
"The  Adventurer,"  "The  World,"  "The  Connois- 
seur," "The  Mirror,"  <'  The  Looker-On,"  "The 
Lounger,"  and  "  The  Observer." 


SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  75 

But  Miller's  arraignment  of  the  periodical  writing 
of  the  eighteenth  century  gives  a  fair  criticism  of  the 
present  era — "  it  produces  ostentatious  and  superficial 
scholars,  it  is  unfavorable  to  sound  erudition,  discour- 
ages reading  and  systematic  thinking,  and  leads  men 
to  try  for  a  short  and  easy  path  to  real  scholarship." 

Miller  called  the  eighteenth  century  "  peculiarly  and 
emphatically  "  the  age  of  the  novel,  and  he  reviewed 
the  writings  of  Richardson,  Fielding,  Sterne,  and 
others,  much  as  they  would  be  reviewed  by  modern 
critics.  Of  the  "Vicar  of  Wakefield  "  he  said:  "  It 
will  be  read  with  pleasure  as  one  of  the  finest,  most 
happily  imagined,  and  most  moral  pictures  ever 
drawn."  In  this  connection  he  also  commented  on  the 
work  of  Charles  Brockden  Brown  as  that  of  the  first 
American  who  had  presented  his  fellow-countrymen 
with  what  was  termed  "  a  respectable  piece  of  fictitious 
history." 

Of  the  evil  of  reading  novels  Miller  had  no  doubt. 
He  spoke  of  the  "  thirst  "  for  novels  as  ardent  and  ex- 
tensive, even  terming  it  a  "  morbid  appetite."  He  did 
not  question  that  novels  might  be  productive  of  utility 
when  properly  conceived  and  constructed,  saying  that 
they  might  be  written  to  promote  knowledge  and  vir- 
tue, but  he  declared  there  were  few  of  that  .class. 
They  were  thought  to  be  generally  positively  bad  or 
frivolous;  of  the  best  of  them  it  could  be  said,  they 
were  "  innocent  and  amusing  compositions."  If  pos- 
sible, Miller  would  have  wholly  prevented  the  reading 
of  novels ;  at  the  best,  he  would  have  had  the  reading 
of  a  few,  and  these  selected  with  vigilance. 


76  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

EDUCATION   AND   SOCIAL   PROGRESS. 

No  more  interesting  controversy  was  inherited  from 
the  eighteenth  century  than  that  over  the  "  omnipo- 
tence of  education,"  and  the  "  perfectibility  of  man." 
In  brief,  those  who  held  to  these  doctrines  believed 
that  suffering  was  to  be  eliminated  through  the  spread 
of  knowledge.  This  doctrine  had  an  early  statement 
by  Helvetius  and  Condorcet  in  France,  and  was  later 
taken  up  by  Godwin  in  England.  It  was  Godwin's 
contention  that  vice  was  due  to  the  imperfection  of 
human  institutions.  This  was  in  the  line  of  the  earlier 
feeling  that  differences  in  men  were  due  to  differences 
in  moral  and  intellectual  education. 

Miller  argued  at  length  against  human  perfectibility 
through  education.  He  said,  first,  it  is  contrary  to  the 
nature  and  condition  of  man :  man  does  not  inherit 
moral  power.  Each  man  must  restrain  his  own  appe- 
tites and  subdue  his  own  passions.  In  the  second 
place,  this  doctrine  is  contrary  to  all  experience;  and 
in  the  third,  it  is  in  opposition  to  the  principles  of  in- 
crease in  population  anjd  the  limit  of  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence. Under  this  head  Miller  follows  the  lines  laid 
down  by  Malthus  in  the  "  Essay  on  Population,"  which 
he  termed  a  strong  anonymous  work,  which  for  "  force 
of  reasoning,  candor  and  urbanity  of  discussion  has 
rarely,  if  ever,  been  exceeded."  Finally,  as  a  Calvin- 
istic  theologian,  Miller  discredited  this  doctrine  as  op- 
posing the  Scripture,  according  to  which,  as  he  be- 
lieved, men  are  fallen  and  depraved  beings.  He  was 


SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT.  77 

likely  right  in  feeling  that  this  theory  had  enjoyed  so 
large  currency  because  it  was  flattering  to  men;  it 
seemed  to  place  them  in  a  position  of  power  and  inde- 
pendence. 

In  no  particular  does  our  age  stand  in  more  striking 
contrast  with  this  Retrospect  of  the  eighteenth  century 
than  in  its  notion  of  the  education  of  women.  Said 
Miller,  it  was  neither  practical  nor  desirable  that 
women  should  have  the  same  education  as  men,  and  for 
the  following  reasons  :  ( I )  Women  are  destined  to  dif- 
ferent employments  and  pursuits ;  they  are  smaller, 
weaker  and  more  timid  than  men.  (2)  To  make  edu- 
cation of  women  the  same  as  that  of  men  would  be 
productive  of  the  most  immoral  consequences.  Samuel 
Miller  shrunk  with  horror  at  the  thought  of  co-educa- 
tion, "  the  promiscuous  mingling  of  the  sexes,"  and 
affirmed  that  it  would  "  convert  society  into  a  hoard 
of  seducers  and  prostitutes."  (3)  In  conclusion,  as 
usual,  he  made  a  point  of  his  theological  argument. 
Equal  education  was  thought  not  only  impracticable; 
it  was  felt  to  be  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity. 
"  The  God  of  nature,"  he  said,  "  has  raised  everlast- 
ingly barriers  against  such  wild  and  mischievous 
claims." 

CONCLUSION. 

Samuel  Miller  commented  on  the  general  character 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  nothing  he  said  is  half 
so  satisfactory  evidence  of  this  fact  as  his  own  book. 
The  past  hundred  years  have  been  characterized  by 


78  SAMUEL  MILLER'S  RETROSPECT. 

such  specialization  that  it  is  beyond  one  man  to  carry 
through  with  any  degree  of  success  so  comprehensive 
a  work  as  Miller's  Retrospect.  Reviews  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  of  equal  scope  were  the  result  of  co- 
operative effort  of  a  dozen  specialists. 

One  feels  like  expressing  anew  the  sentiment  of  the 
London  "Aikin  Annual  Review  "  at  the  time  the  Ret- 
rospect appeared :  "  It  were  ungrateful  to  require  per- 
fection where  so  much  has  been  performed,"  and  "  it 
is  honorable  that  literary  curiosity  should  have  been  so 
alert  and  comprehensive."  Accounts  of  the  nineteenth 
century  should  not  forget  the  notable  achievements  of 
the  eighteenth,  nor  should  the  present  ignore  a  work 
that  is  in  many  respects  a  revelation. 


V. 

UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION. 

IN  their  numerous  conventions  teachers  give  them- 
selves largely  to  the  discussions  of  curricula — either 
the  content  and  arrangement  of  the  subject-matter  of 
instruction,  or  to  the  methods  of  presentation.  Boards 
of  Education  at  the  same  time  are  concerned  almost 
wholly  with  the  questions  of  material  equipment;  they 
may  be  parsimonious  in  the  payment  of  teachers,  but 
in  late  years  they  have  been  almost  prodigal  in  the  ex- 
penditures for  buildings  and  apparatus.  But  in  all 
this  we  need  to  remind  ourselves  that  buildings  and  the 
subject-matter  of  instruction  are  of  themselves  dead 
things,  that  methods  of  teaching  are  mechanical  de- 
vices, and  that  both  are  wholly  dependent  on  the  teach- 
ers who  use  them.  Unless  there  is  the  living,  inspirit- 
ing personality  of  the  teacher,  both  curricula  and 
methods,  however  good  in  themselves,  may  count  for 
naught.  One  may  go  further  and  say  that  inadequate 
physical  equipment,  bad  curricula  and  faulty  peda- 
gogical methods  may  in  the  hands  of  a  teacher  of  per- 
sonal force  and  character  accomplish  desirable  ends. 
The  silent  unconscious  power  which  the  teacher  exerts, 
unconscious  alike  to  the  teacher  and  the  taught,  is 

79 


80  UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION. 

often  more  determining  in  its  influence  and  more  last- 
ing in  its  effect  than  is  the  formal  and  purposeful 
teaching  of  the  schools.  A  truth  before  which  teach- 
ers should  stand  with  bared  heads  is  that  they  teach 
more  by  what  they  are  than  by  what  they  mean  to 
teach,  or  how  they  teach  it.  One  wise  in  his  genera- 
tion said,  "  You  need  not  tell  me  what  you  study;  tell 
me  who  are  your  teachers." 

One  with  rare  insight  in  education  thus  expresses 
the  truth  above  stated : 

As  the  heart  makes  the  home,  the  teacher  makes 
the  school.  What  we  need  above  all  things,  wher- 
ever the  young  are  gathered  for  education,  is  not  a 
showy  building,  or  costly  apparatus,  or  improved 
methods  or  text-books,  but  a  living,  loving,  illu- 
mined human  being  who  has  deep  faith  in  the 
power  of  education  and  a  real  desire  to  bring  it  to 
bear  upon  those  who  are  intrusted  to  him.  This 
applies  to  the  primary  school  with  as  much  force 
as  to  the  high  school  and  university.  Those  who 
think — and  they  are,  I  imagine,  the  vast  major- 
ity— that  any  one  who  can  read  and  write,  who 
knows  something  of  arithmetic,  geography,  and  his- 
tory, is  competent  to  educate  young  children,  have 
not  even  the  most  elementary  notions  of  what  edu- 
cation is.1 

Arnold,   from  whom  personal  power  radiated  and 
who  is  an  abiding  influence  in  the  English  schools; 

1  Spaulding,  Means  and  Ends  of  Education,  135. 


UNCONSCIO  US  ED  UCA  TION.  8 1 

once  wrote  his  requirements  for  a  teacher:  "  I  want  a 
man  who  is  a  Christian  and  a  gentleman,  and  one  who 
has  common  sense  and  understands  boys.  I  prefer 
activity  of  the  mind  and  interest  to  high  scholarship, 
for  one  may  be  acquired  far  more  easily  than  the 
other."  President  Hyde's  observations  are  that  no 
teacher's  success  can  be  accounted  for  by  high  scholar- 
ship alone,  and  he  said  that  he  had  never  known  a 
failure  that  could  not  be  accounted  for  in  other  ways 
than  by  lack  of  scholarship.  Teachers  should  not  be 
deceived  with  the  thought  that  they  are  to  teach  a 
given  subject  or  to  practice  a  given  method.  Instead 
they  are  to  teach  boys  and  girls,  and  as  Professor  West 
observes,  they  may  well  start  with  an  acceptance  of 
Pope's  saying, 

The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man. 

A  teacher  should  try  to  live  up  to  the  standard  of 
being  a  "  human  being,  incidentally  a  scholar,  and 
accidentally  in  a  given  calling."  The  supreme  quality 
of  the  true  teacher  is  the  human.  With  one  who  has 
a  large  measure  of  humanity,  scholarship  may  well  be 
incidental,  and  the  calling  accidental.  The  teacher 
should  have  a  deep,  broad  and  full  human  sympathy. 
No  man  should  go  into  teaching  who  cannot  accept  as 
the  fundamental  tenet  of  his  creed,  "  I  believe  in  boys 
and  girls,  the  men  and  women  of  the  great  to-morrow." 

Personality  is  presence,  attractiveness,  that  magnet 
which  draws  and  holds.  One  fundamental  distinction 
is,  that  personality  is  not  eccentricity  or  peculiarity. 


82  UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION. 

Personality  includes  both  body  and  soul ;  both  heart 
and  mind;  it  is  that  indefinable  something  which  binds 
individual  to  individual. 

One  fundamental  quality  of  a  teacher's  personal 
force  is  intellectual  enthusiasm.  If  he  is  to  succeed  in 
being  the  inspirer  of  others  he  must  himself  be  a 
learner,  for  an  active  mind  is  necessary  to  stimulate 
other  minds  to  activity.  Some  one  asked  Thomas 
Arnold  late  in  life  how  it  was  that  he  who  had  spent 
so  many  years  in  teaching  found  it  necessary  still  to 
employ  several  hours  each  day  in  studying.  The 
Prince  of  Schoolmasters  answered,  ""I  study  that  my 
pupils  may  drink  at  a  living  fountain,  not  at  a  stag- 
nant pool."  Edward  Suess,  the  great  Austrian  geolo- 
gist, said  in  his  farewell  lecture :  "  When  I  became  a 
teacher,  I  did  not  cease  to  be  a  student ;  and  now  that 
I  cease  to  be  a  teacher,  I  shall  not  cease  to  be  a  stu- 
dent." 

Professor  Meiklejohn,  in  a  late  paper  in  answer  to 
the  question,  Is  Mental  Training  a  Myth,  reaches  the 
conclusion : 

"  I  am  persuaded,  however,  that  far  more  important 
than  the  subject  (of  study)  is  the  mind  of  the  teacher. 
The  one  sure  way  to  learn  good  thinking  is  to  come 
into  contact  with  a  mind  which  thinks  well  and  to  feel 
its  influence.  In  the  game  of  thinking,  as  in  games  of 
the  athletic  field,  one  learns  best  by  practice  in  fast 
company.  And  it  is  not,  in  my  opinion,  necessary,  as 
is  sometimes  suggested,  that  the  method  of  the  teacher 
should  find  expression  in  conscious  ideals  which  may 


UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION.  83 

be  communicated  as  guiding  principles  to  the  stu- 
dent." x 

Euthusiasm  is  as  a  moving  force  in  education,  and 
the  most  pitiable  creature  one  can  well  imagine  is  a 
teacher  with  his  enthusiasm  gone.  His  life  is  then 
burned  out.  Those  who  have  been  much  about  schools 
and  colleges  are  familiar  with  the  type  represented  by 
an  Oxford  professor  of  whom  the  statement  was  made 
that  he  was  a  cupboard  full  of  learning,  but  that  the 
door  to  this  learning  was  locked.  The  unused  power 
of  a  teacher  may  well  be  likened  to  a  shell  found  on 
the  field  years  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  with  the 
explosive  power  still  enclosed,  but  from  which  the 
fuse  had  died  out.  The  fuse  of  enthusiasm  is  a  neces- 
sity if  the  teacher's  power  is  to  be  exerted.  It  is  the 
enthusiasm  of  youth  that  often  gives  young  teachers 
marked  power.  But  this  enthusiasm  need  not  be  lim- 
ited by  years.  President  Eliot  tells  us  that  there  are 
two  kinds  of  persons  who  make  good  teachers,  those 
who  are  young  in  years,  and  those  who  never  grow  old. 
Dr.  Arnold  feared  for  loss  of  influence  at  Rugby  if  he 
were  not  able  to  run  upstairs. 

The  most  important  of  the  qualities  operating  in 
unconscious  education  is  the  basal  character  of  the 
teacher.  In  last  analysis  this  is  the  life  back  of  the 
teaching.  And  here  is  a  case  where  "  what  one  is 
goes  before  what  one  has  or  does."  There  must  be  a 
genuineness  of  the  teacher's  interest — his  deep  concern 

1  Educational  Review,  February,   1909. 


84  UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION. 

for  those  with  whom  he  labors.  Out  of  this  interest 
he  is  moulding  those  whom  he  teaches.  It  was  this 
thought  that  Emerson  expressed  when  he  said,  "  I 
cannot  hear  what  you  say,  because  behind  what  you 
say  thunders  so  loud  what  you  are."  Of  Emerson 
himself  a  lady  once  remarked  that  although  she  did 
not  understand  what  he  said,  she  loved  to  hear  him 
lecture,  because  he  looked  like  so  good  a  man. 
As  Bishop  Spaulding  well  says : 

Education  is  essentially  a  vital  process.  It  is 
a  furthering  of  life ;  and  as  the  living  proceed  from 
the  living,  they  can  rise  in  the  wider  world  of 
ideas  and  conduct  only  by  help  of  the  living;  and. 
as  in  the  physical  realm  every  animal  begets  after 
its  own  likeness,  so  also  in  the  spiritual  the  teacher 
can  give  but  what  he  has.  If  the  well-spring  of 
truth  and  love  has  run  dry  within  himself,  he 
teaches  in  vain.  His  words  will  no  more  bring 
forth  life  than  desert  winds  will  clothe  arid  sands 
with  verdure. 

Character  is  not  a  quality  to  be  assumed.  Young 
people  are  quick  to  discriminate  between  the  profes- 
sions and  the  practices  of  those  with  whom  they  asso- 
ciate. 

The  relation  of  the  true  teacher  to  his  pupils  may 
well  become  that  of  the  risen  Lord  to  his  apostles  on  the 
way  from  Emmaus ;  they  felt  their  hearts  burn  within 
them  as  he  talked  with  them  on  the  way.  The  Christ 


UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION.  85 

taught  as  one  having  authority  because  he  spoke  with 
his  whole  nature.  The  shadow  of  the  life  of  the 
teacher  falls  on  those  who  come  under  his  influence 
either  to  heal  or  to  hurt;  the  character  in  him  may, 
like  the  shadow  of  the  apostles  of  old,  fall  upon  those 
who  come  within  his  path  to  their  healing. 

From  the  character  of  the  teacher  comes  the  kind 
of  teaching  that  lasts.  "As  the  student  emerges  from 
the  school,"  writes  Dr.  E.  J.  Goodwin,  "  and  takes  up 
the  duties  of  life,  he  more  and  more  loses  his  hold 
upon  the  facts  of  geography,  history,  language,  math- 
ematics, and  science  which  have  been  taught  him  with 
so  much  solicitude;  but  the  intellectual  training  which 
he  gets  from  study,  and  the  ideals  of  character  and 
conduct,  the  outlook  upon  life — its  duties  and  oppor- 
tunities— which  he  gets  from  the  teacher,  are  perma- 
nent acquisitions  which  may  contribute  more  toward 
his  ultimate  success  and  serviceableness  than  any 
knowledge  which  he  has  obtained  from  his  school- 
books." 

Recent  striking  arraignments  of  our  systems  of  edu- 
cation are  to  the  effect  that  they  develop  persons  of 
mere  intellect  and  do  not  properly  train  the  emotions 
and  sensibilities.  Education,  the  statement  goes,  pro- 
duces "  intellectual  degenerates."  Of  late  there  has 
been  much  said  on  moral  education,  but  the  personality 
of*  the  teacher  is  at  the  root  of  all  moral  training.  The 
teacher's  ideals,  sincerity,  poise,  self-control,  courtesy, 
voice,  manner  of  dress  and  attitude  toward  life  are  in 
a  recent  syllabus  well  termed  the  most  potent  forces 


86  UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION. 

for  the  training  of  those  in  the  schools.     This  again 
has  been  well  expressed  by  Bishop  Spaulding : 

Life  produces  life,  life  develops  life;  and  if 
the  teacher  have  within  himself  a  living  sense  of 
the  all-importance  of  conduct,  if  he  thoroughly 
realize  that  what  we  call  knowledge  is  a  small  part 
of  man's  life,  his  influence  will  nourish  the  feelings 
by  which  character  is  evolved.  The  germ  of  a 
moral  idea  is  always  an  emotion,  and  that  which 
impels  to  right  action  is  the  emotion  rather  than  the 
idea.  The  teachings  of  the  heart  remain  forever, 
and  they  are  the  most  important ;  for  what  we  love, 
genuinely  believe  in  and  desire,  decides  what  we 
are  and  may  become.  Hence  the  true  educator, 
even  in  giving  technical  instruction,  strives  not 
merely  to  make  a  workman,  but  to  make  also  a 
man.1 

The  teacher  is  a  "  channel  marker  "  for  life.  Mark 
Twain,  in  telling  of  his  experiences  as  a  young  pilot 
on  the  Mississippi  River,  said  that  on  the  river  in  those 
days  were  three  "  incomparables  "  as  pilots,  and  that 
one  of  them,  Ben  Thornburgh  by  name,  made  so  fine 
a  reputation  for  escaping  the  reefs  and  bars  that  he 
was  the  standard  for  safety,  and  men  would  declare 
"As  safe  as  Ben  Thornburgh."  Of  him  Mark  Twain 
writes :  "  Nobody  needed  to  search  for  the  best  water 
after  Ben  Thornburgh.  If  he  could  not  find  it  no  one 

1  Means  and  Ends  of  Education,  148. 


UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION.  87 

could.  I  felt  that  way  about  him,  and  so  more  than 
once  I  waited  for  him  to  find  the  way,  then  dropped 
into  his  steamer's  wake  and  ran  over  the  wrecks  of  his 
buoys  on  half  steam  until  the  leadsman's  welcome  cry' 
of  '  Mark  Twain  '  informed  me  that  I  was  over  the 
bar  all  right  and  could  draw  a  full  breath  again." 

To  look  at  a  worthy  example  in  the  teacher  begets 
unconsciously  its  like  in  the  child.  An  incident  is  re- 
corded of  the  presentation  of  a  beautiful  picture  to 
a  somewhat  irresponsible  undergraduate  at  Oxford. 
This  picture  was  hung  in  the  young  man's  room  in  a 
prominent  place,  amidst  a  medley  of  cheap  cuts  and 
objectionable  prints.  One  by  one  the  gaudy  favorites 
disappeared,  and  in  time  the  beautiful  picture  was 
surrounded  by  others  in  harmony  with  its  character. 
In  explanation  the  young  man  said :  "  You  see,  I 
couldn't  leave  them  up  with  that.  The  contrast  was 
too  dreadful.  I  didn't  see  it  at  first,  but  I  suppose 
that  looking  at  the  picture  opened  my  eyes  till  I  could 
see  it,  and  then,  I  tell  you,  these  cheap  prints  came 
down  in  a  hurry !  And  it  was  the  same  way  in  putting 
up  new  pictures.  That  one  set  the  standard,  and  I 
knew  I  couldn't  have,  and  didn't  want,  anything  that 
wasn't  in  harmony  with  it." 

The  next  of  the  elements  in  this  unconscious  educa- 
tion is  a  genuine  sympathy  for  those  taught  and  a 
capacity  to  get  their  point  of  view.  Such  a  sympathy 
is  born  of  affection ;  of  it  Emerson  says  in  his  Plato : 
"  If  there  is  love  between  us,  our  intercourse  will  be 
profitable;  if  not,  your  time  is  lost  and  you  will  only 


88  UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION. 

annoy  me  ...  all  my  good  is  magnetic,  and  I  edu 
cate  not  by  lessons,  but  by  going  about  my  business." 
Because  of  their  lack  of  sympathy  some  teachers  fall 
•  under  the  criticism  of  a  minister  of  whom  an  old 
farmer  said :  "  He  told  us  if  we  did  right,  we  would 
get  to  heaven,  but  if  we  did  wrong,  we  would  go  to 
hell,  and  he  didn't  seem  to  care  much  which." 

It  is  this  sympathy  which  enables  the  teacher  to  be 
the  spiritual  father  of  those  whom  he  teaches.  In  loco 
parentis  is  not  to  be  used  in  the  sense  of  merely  taking 
the  place  of  the  authority  of  the  parent,  but  of  super- 
seding the  parent  in  affection  and  desire  to  advance  the 
interest  of  young  people.  Boswell  tells  that  when  Dr. 
Johnson  went  to  Pembroke  College,  Oxford,  he  had  as 
tutor  one  Jorden,  whom  he  learned  to  love  and  re- 
spect not  for  his  literary  attainments  or  scholarship, 
but  for  his  genuine  interest.  With  characteristic  fidel- 
ity Boswell  records  a  remark  of  Johnson,  "  Whenever 
a  young  man  becomes  Jorden's  pupil  he  becomes  his 
son."  To  refer  again  to  Arnold,  we  have  under  this 
head  his  statement,  "If  ever  I  could  receive  a  new 
boy  from  his  father  without  emotion  I  should  think  it 
was  high  time  to  be  off." 

Arnold's  opinion  of  a  school  is  that  it  is  a  place, 
first,  for  the  promotion  of  a  character;  learning  and 
study  are  secondary  and  as  a  means  to  a  higher  end. 
The  results  of  genuine  interest  were  never  better  shown 
than  in  Arnold's  influence.  When  Dean  Stanley  was 
once  asked  of  the  amount  Arnold  taught  as  lessons,  he 
held  up  a  small  notebook  and  said  he  could  put  into 


UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION.  89 

that  book  all  of  such  teaching  that  Arnold  ever  gave 
him.  Arnold's  influence  was  stimulative  rather  than  in- 
structional. His  personality  is  a  living  force,  and  Stan- 
ley well  showed  that  the  image  of  Arnold's  work 
which  we  have  before  us  is  not  the  school,  or  the  writ- 
ing, but  the  man  himself. 

Marked  development  on  the  part  of  the  students  has 
been  the  outgrowth  of  this  genuineness  of  interest,  and 
of  many  great  teachers  it  might  be  said,  "  Thou  shalt 
get  kings,  though  thou  shalt  be  none."  Of  Jowett  the 
statement  is  made  that  he  was  a  "  student  fancier  "• 
that  is,  one  who  understood  students,  divined  their 
needs,  and  stimulated  them  to  their  best  efforts.  No 
true  teacher  can  fail  to  have  deep  satisfaction  in  the 
development  and  directing  promising  students,  and  in 
such  experience  he  has  the  richest  reward  for  his  work. 

Educational  history  is  replete  with  evidences  of  the 
results  flowing  from  unconscious  education  of  great 
masters.  In  quoting  from  Agassiz  in  his  lectures  Pro- 
fessor Shaler.used  to  say  with  reverence,  "  my  master 
Louis  Agassiz,"  and  as  the  influence  of  Agassiz  lived 
in  S'haler,  so  his  influence  lives  with  multitudes  of 
students.  It  almost  came  to  be  a  tradition  at  Harvard 
that  every  one  must  take  a  course  with  Professor 
Shaler,  "  not  so  much  for  the  subject  as  for  the  man." 

A  high  tribute  was  once  paid  to  Dr.  Nott  of  Union 
College  in  a  statement  that  "  He  took  the  sweepings 
of  other  colleges  and  sent  them  back  into  society  pure 
gold."  In  a  recent  discussion  with  regard  to  the  rela- 
tive merits  of  students  entering  different  departments 


90  UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION. 

in  a  given  school,  one  department  was  criticized  be- 
cause of  the  character  of  students  it  received ;  but  the 
one  in  charge  of  it  was  able  to  make  its  defense  in  the 
statement  that  the  important  thing  was  not  the  char- 
acter of  student  received  but  of  the  product  turned  out, 
and  he  could  point  with  pride  to  the  honorable  record 
of  this  department's  graduates. 

In  the  inspiring  life  of  Alice  Freeman  Palmer,  Pro- 
fessor Palmer  attributes  the  career  of  this  remarkable 
woman  to  the  early  influence  of  a  teacher  of  character 
and  insight.  "  It  was  this  man,"  said  Professor  Pal- 
mer, "  who  made  her  think  herself  worth  while."  The 
coming  of  this  teacher  into  the  life  of  Miss  Freeman 
is  made  the  occasion  for  saying:  "  Such  an  event  has 
formed  the  turning-point  for  many  a  life,  and  more 
often  than  any  other  has  been  decisive  in  bringing 
about  a  studious  career.  Some  one  person  has  vital- 
ized, knowledge  for  us — it  matters  little  what  branch — 
and  almost  magically  our  vague  and  variable  desire 
for  learning,  power,  'public  service,  becomes  crystal- 
lized and  takes  a  shape  which  defies  the  battling  of 
after  years.  Personal  influence  is  a  commanding  fac- 
tor everywhere,  but  nowhere  has  it  such  immediate 
and  lasting  effect  as  in  the  schools." 

Dr.  Arnold's  success  at  Rugby  came  as  he  wished 
it  to  come,  more  largely  from  the  atmosphere  of  the 
place  than  from  mere  book  learning.  "  The  manage- 
ment of  boys,"  said  he,  "  has  all  the  interest  of  a  great 
game  of  chess,  with  living  creatures  for  pawns  and 
pieces,  and  your  adversary  the  devil,  who  truly  plays 


UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION.  91 

a  tough  game  and  is  very  hard  to  beat."  There  was 
in  the  English  public  schools  a  low  moral  tone  when 
Arnold  came  to  Rugby,  and  his  labor  was  to  reform 
the  glaring  evils.  His  rules  were  that  to  make  a  boy 
a  gentleman  is  to  treat  him  as  one,  and  the  way  to 
make  a  boy  truthful  is  to  believe  what  he  says;  and 
soon  it  became  a  tradition  at  Rugby  that  it  was  a 
shame  to  tell  Arnold  a  lie,  for  he  always  believed  it. 
The  school  chapel  became  an  important  institution  in 
the  life  of  the  place,  and  here  Arnold  made  his  telling 
talks  on  moral  cowardice,  fidelity  to  parents,  and  so  on. 
In  dealing  with  boys  he  knew  when  to  see  and  when 
not  to  see,  as  the  good  of  the  boy  could  be  best  served. 

What  has  been  termed  the  "  contagious  enthusiasm  " 
of  Dr.  Arnold's  character  reformed  the  English  public 
schools.  After  Arnold  went  to  Oxford  as  Regius  Pro- 
fessor of  Modern  History  a  hypercritical  and  unsym- 
pathetic don  wrote  of  his  lectures,  "  Everything  he 
does,  he  does  with  life  and  force,  and  I  cannot  help 
liking  his  manly  and  open  way." 

This  accomplishment  of  Arnold's  could  be  matched 
in  many  ways.  President  Jordan  has  remarked  on 
what  he  terms  the  martyrdom  of  President  Tappan 
which  made  the  University  of  Michigan  the  great  force 
that  it  has  been  among  institutions  of  higher  educa- 
tion. Alexander  the  Great,  notable  as  a  military  com- 
mander and  promoter  of  the  world's  civilization,  made 
the  remark  that  to  his  father  he  was  indebted  for 
living,  but  to  his  teacher,  Aristotle,  he  was  indebted 
for  living  well. 


92  UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION. 

One  finds  in  inspecting  schools  that  to  a  remarkable 
degree  the  spirit  of  the  directing  head  dominates 
teachers  and  pupils  alike.  Schools  which  are  under 
the  same  official  regulations  and  are  a  part  of  the  same 
system  will  be  found  to  differ  widely,  and  with  no 
explainable  cause  except  the  differences  in  the  men 
who  are  back  of  the  regulations  carrying  them  out. 
So  largely  was  this  found  to  be  true  in  a  visit  to 
European  schools  that  two  American  teachers  were 
able  again  and  again  to  forecast  the  character  of  a 
school  from  an  interview  with  the  director.  Good 
schools  were  found  with  bad  official  regulations  and 
under  physical  conditions  which  were  most  unpromis- 
ing, and  poor  schools  existed  elsewhere  despite  good 
official  regulations  and  what  were  clearly  favorable 
conditions  for  carrying  them  on.  The  explanations 
were  in  the  differences  in  the  character  and  personal 
influence  of  those  who  were  the  presiding  geniuses  of 
the  different  schools.  The  same  differences  can  be 
noted  in  the  different  class-rooms  of  a  given  school. 

In  a  larger  way  great  educational  reforms  have  re- 
sulted from  the  spirit  of  some  leader  who  has  visioned 
an  ideal.  Near  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century 
Humboldt  in  Germany  wrote :  "  The  thing  is  not  to  let 
the  schools  and  universities  go  on  in  a  dreary  and  im- 
potent routine;  the  thing  is  to  raise  the  culture  of  the 
nation  ever  higher  and  higher  by  their  means."  The 
King  of  Prussia  called  Humboldt  to  put  his  ideas  into 
practice  as  Minister  of  Education,  and  he  laid  the 
foundations  for  the  brilliant  educational  career  that 


UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION.  93 

Prussia  had  in  the  nineteenth  century.  So  George 
Kerschensteiner  was  called  by  the  city  of  Munich  to 
work  out  his  ideas  for  making  a  system  of  education 
serve  the  industries  of  a  community.  As  Schulrat  of 
Munich,  Kerschensteiner  has  made  her  schools  probably 
the  most  famous  of  any  in  the  world.  As  one  goes  to 
Munich  and  studies  her  schools  he  finds  everywhere 
the  touch  of  the  master-hand  of  Kerschensteiner.  In 
England  also  a  great  teacher  and  leader  is  quietly  yet 
masterfully  shaping  and  moulding  the  educational 
thought  of  communities  and  of  the  nation,  and  Michael 
E.  Sadler  by  means  of  his  special  reports,  and  his 
recommendations  to  various  cities,  has  exercised  a  last- 
ing influence  upon  the  schools  of  his  country. 

Teachers  and  educational  leaders  alike  should  wel- 
come the  call  to  an  "  aristocracy  of  service."  The  true 
teacher  knows  that  virtue  goes  out  of  him,  and  the  one 
who  gives  his  life  without  stint  may  sap  his  physical 
strength,  may  become  a-weary  in  the  stimulation  and 
direction  of  other  minds;  but  he  should  find  deep 
satisfaction  in  the  thought  that  he  is  weaving  the  warp 
and  the  woof  of  character.  The  true  relation  of  the 
teacher  and  his  pupil  is  illustrated  by  Socrates  and 
Plato,  Arnold  and  Stanley,  and  the  Divine  Master  and 
His  Disciples. 

The  demands  which  a  standard  of  unconscious  edu- 
cation raises  should  not  dishearten  the  teacher,  but 
it  should  stimulate  him  rather  to  meet  these  demands. 
The  teacher  can,  by  his  own  true  life  and  lofty  purpose, 
develop  the  power  of  personality  which  will  mould  the 


94  UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION. 

plastic  life  committed  to  his  charge.  Longfellow  found 
inspiration  for  the  work  of  a  potter  in  the  thought  of 
the  finished  product,  and  he  makes  the  potter  sing  at 
his  task : 

Turn,  turn  my  wheel ;   this  earthen  jar, 

A  touch  can  make,  a  touch  can  mar, 
And  shall  it  to  the  potter  say, 
'  What  makest  thou,  thou  hast  no  hand  ?  ' 

Sculptors  whom  the  world  remembers  and  calls  great 
have  but  chiseled  imperfect  creations  from  lifeless 
marble.  How  much  more  important  is  the  task  com- 
mitted to  the  teacher,  of  helping  to  form  the  per/fect 
life.  A  recent  description  of  a  battle  indicates  that  in 
the  developments  of  the  art  of  war,  movements  and  the 
signs  of  battle  become  invisible  through  the  use  of 
smokeless  powder  and  the  inconspicuous  color  of  the 
uniforms  worn.  The  fighting-line  is  not  discernible, 
but  the  observer  catches  here  and  there  an  indication 
of  a  great  struggle  in  progress.  So  teachers  may  feel 
that  in  secret,  away  from  the  gaze  of  the  world,  and 
even  unconsciously  to  themselves,  they  are  fighting  the 
battles  for  a  higher  life.  The  most  enduring  pleasure 
from  teaching  is  in  the  thought  that  the  best  one  is 
and  can  be  will  live  again  in  his  pupils.  In  this 
thought  teachers  should  find  the  supreme  satisfaction 
for  their  effort,  the  richest  reward  for  their  service. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  preceding  statement 
of  the  teacher's  silent  influence,  implies  that  lessons  are 
to  be  given  consciously,  and  that  these  lessons  are  to 


UNCONSCIOUS  EDUCATION.  95 

train  the  intelligence  and  perfect  the  skill  of  those  be- 
ing taught.  What  is  here  urged  is  the  unconscious 
effect  of  capacity  and  thorough  work  by  the  teacher; 
the  incidental  consequences  of 'teaching  well  done — the 
results  from  the  teacher's  example. 


VI. 

THE  NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS.  1 

To  have  rounded  out  eighty  and  three  years  in  per- 
fect health  and  with  well-preserved  faculties ;  to  have 
completed  sixty-four  years  in  the  arduous  calling  of 
a  teacher,  the  last  twenty-nine  of  which  were  without 
a  day's  absence  because  of  illness;  to. have  taught  high 
ideals  and  shown  a  worthy  example  to  above  twenty 
thousand  young  men,  and  sent  them  forth  to  usefulness 
and  honor  in  public  and  private  life;  to  have  been 
schoolmaster  to  the  United  States  senators,  governors, 
and  judges;  to  see  his  children  and  grandchildren  pass 
through  his  own  school,  and  in  the  heyday  of  youth 
to  welcome  his  great-grandchildren  as  associates  in 
the  pursuit  of  knowledge;  to  stand  as  a  stalwart  oak 
while  friends,  colleagues,  and  family  pass  to  the  be- 
yond ;  to  keep  amid  all  perplexities  and  vicissitudes  a 
simple  trust  and  an  unswerving  devotion  to  duty — this 
is  but  the  life  history  of  Zephaniah  Hopper  of  the 
Philadelphia  Central  High  School.  No  citizen  of 
Philadelphia  is  more  respected  than  is  this  unpreten- 

1  Reprinted  with  slight  change  from  The  School  Review,  February, 
1907. 

96 


NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS.  97 

tious  teacher  of  young  men,  who  seems  to  have  found 
in  disinterested  service  the  secret  of  perpetual  youth. 

Zephaniah  Hopper  is  of  Quaker  stock.  As  his 
father  was  a  carpenter  of  limited  means,  and  young 
Zephaniah  the  oldest  of  seven  children,  he  was  kept 
at  school  with  difficulty,  and  kept  there  at  all  only  be- 
cause certain  of  his  teachers  urged  that  the  lad's  earn- 
estness should  be  rewarded  with  an  opportunity  to 
continue  his  studies.  Of  his  school  days  Professor 
Hopper  says  he  is  sure  that  any  good  showing  he 
may  have  made  was  more  the  result  of  diligent  appli- 
cation than  of  superior  talent,  as  he  has  always  ac- 
quired knowledge  with  difficulty. 

In  1838  the  Central  High  School  was  established, 
and  a  year  later  young  Hopper  entered  as  a  member 
of  its  second  class.  Marked  ability  on  his  part  gained 
for  him  promotion  to  the  first  class,  and  he  was  grad- 
uated in  1842.  At  the  Central  High  School  he  came 
under  the  presidency  of  Alexander  Dallas  Bache,  a 
great-grandson  of  Benjamin  Franklin  and  a  man  who 
had  already  made  for  himself  an  honored  name  by  his 
report  on  Education  in  Europe.  The  Central  High 
School  in  which  Zephaniah  Hopper  was  educated  was 
the  embodiment  of  the  educational  ideas  of  one  of  the 
most  advanced  thinkers  of  the  time,  and  that  school 
still  bears  the  mark  of  Bache's  influence. 

Professor  Hopper's  life  as  a  student  and  teacher 
covers  the  whole  period  of  free  schools  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. While  he  was  still  at  a  private  school  in  1835, 
Thaddeus  Stevens  made  his  impassioned  defense  of 


98  NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS. 

the  free  school  bill  and  secured  state-supported  schools. 
The  Central  High  School  was  an  early  result  of  free 
education  in  Pennsylvania.  It  is  also  one  of  the  oldest 
public  high  schools  of  the  country.  Few  schools  have 
done  more  for  their  communities  than  has  the  Central 
High  School  for  Philadelphia;  in  manufactures  and 
commerce,  in  the  professions  and  public  service,  its 
graduates  have  had  honored  places,  and  throughout 
they  have  stood  for  what  is  best  in  the  life  of  the  city. 
Of  this  great  school  Zephaniah  Hopper  was  first  the 
product,  and  in  it  he  has  later  been  a  most  positive 
and  beneficent  influence. 

In  the  autumn  of  1842  Professor  Hopper  began  his 
career  as  a  teacher,  at  the  salary  of  $200  a  year.  At 
this  time  he  walked  a  distance  of  seven  miles  to  his 
school  in  the  morning  and  back  again  at  night.  Five 
years  later  the  young  schoolmaster  became  principal 
of  the  Jefferson  Grammar  School  in  Philadelphia,  and 
here  he  soon  made  a  reputation  by  his  character  and 
earnestness.  These  were  the  days  of  learning  by 
effort,  and  Professor  Hopper  tells  how  he  came  to 
realize  that  in  accurate  work  and  strict  drill  there  is  a 
moral  quality  as  well  as  a  mental  discipline.  Few 
men  were  more  famed  than  he  as  drillmaster  and  dis- 
ciplinarian. Corporal  punishment  was  common — 
"  birching,"  the  subject  of  this  sketch  calls  it;  and  he 
is  still  remembered  by  Jefferson  school  boys  as  the 
possessor  of  a  vigorous  arm  that  used  to  knock  the 
dust  out  of  the  jackets  of  offenders;  but  the  remi- 
niscences of  those  days  never  fail  to  mention  what  are 


NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS.          99 

likely  the  most  striking  characteristics  of  this  man — 
his  sense  of  justice  and  his  fine  discrimination  in  deal- 
ing with  boys.  The  craft  of  the  schoolmaster  has 
changed  much  since  the  forties,  but  this  great  teacher 
has  kept  pace  with  the  changes,  and  he  is  firm  in  the 
opinion  that  the  days  that  are  now  are  better  than  were 
those  of  old  time. 

The  Jefferson  Grammar  School  developed  such  an 
esprit  de  corps  that  its  students  of  an  earlier  genera- 
tion still  point  with  pride  to  their  connection  with  the 
school.  The  record  of  those  from  this  school  in  pass- 
ing for  admission  into  the  Central  High  School,  and 
the  character  of  their  work  after  being  admitted,  re- 
flected such  credit  on  their  principal  that  in  1854  he 
was  asked  to  become  a  teacher  in  the  school  that  had 
educated  him.  From  the  date  of  his  appointment  his 
service  was  continuous  for  above  fifty-three  years,  and 
the  wonder  is,  as  was  remarked  by  the  late  United 
States  Commissioner  of  Education,  that  human  strength 
could  have  endured  for  so  long  a  time. 

Professor  Hopper  began  as  a  teacher  of  English, 
but  his  success  as  a  private  tutor  in  mathematics  led 
to  his  transfer  to  that  department.  In  1869  ne  be- 
came a  teacher  in  the  Artisans'  Night  School  in  the 
Central  High  School  building,  and  later  he  was  for 
twenty  years  principal  of  this  school.  Twice,  for  a 
space  aggregating  above  two  years,  Professor  Hopper 
was  acting  president  of  the  Central  High  School ;  but 
he  refused  to  accept  the  presidency  permanently, 
merely  discharging  the  duties  of  the  office  until  a  suit- 


100         NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS. 

able  person  could  be  found  to  relieve  him,  when  he 
returned  to  the  more  intimate  association  he  would 
have  with  pupils  in  the  classroom.  These  decisions 
now  appear  as  an  evidence  of  the  man's  inspired  com- 
mon sense,  for  they  have  contributed  to  length  of  life 
and  increased  usefulness. 

In  1892  Professor  Hopper  lost  his  life's  companion, 
to  whom  he  had  been  married  in  1845.  His  married 
life  had  been  almost  ideal,  and,  as  he  is  a  man  of  deep 
feeling  and  close  home  ties,  the  loss  of  his  wife  proved 
almost  more  than  he  could  bear.  He  found  comfort 
in  his  children,  grandchildren,  and  great-grandchil- 
dren, and  through  them  he  has  kept  up  the  family  in- 
terest ;  but  he  has  also  found  consolation  in  communion 
with  nature,  and  he  has  become  in  his  later  years  an 
ardent  and  skilled  botanist.  No  youth  ever  pursued 
knowledge  with  keener  zeal  than  is  shown  by  this 
young  octogenarian.  His  regret  is  that  he  did  not 
start  in  this  field  of  science  earlier  in  life,  for,  as  he 
says,  he  fears  that  he  will  not  be  able  to  compass  it  to 
his  satisfaction. 

With  the  new  interest  the  schoolmaster  connected 
himself  at  the  Philadelphia  Academy  of  Natural 
Sciences  and  joined  its  botanical  expeditions.  Not 
content  with  these,  he  organizes  parties  of  his  own,  or 
goes  alone;  and  in  this  way  he  has  explored  the  coun- 
try for  many  miles,  and  has  discovered  many  rare 
specimens  of  flowers.  Each  season  brings  its  delights ; 
in  the  winter  he  studies  trees  and  works  in  the  exten- 
sive herbarium  of  the  Academy;  spring,  summer  and 


NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS.         101 

autumn  flowers  are  eagerly  sought,  the  dates  of  their 
appearance  noted,  and  these  compared  with  the  times 
of  their  former  appearance.  This  interest  is  kept  up 
at  Atlantic  City,  where  Professor  Hopper  spends  his 
vacations.  In  the  early  mornings  and  forenoons  of 
the  summer  he  takes  long  walks  and  gathers  the  flow- 
ers, to  which  he  devotes  the  afternoons.  He  takes 
much  pride  in  mounting  his  specimens  and  has  pre- 
pared a  private  herbarium.  As  duplicate  specimens 
are  secured,  they  are  prepared,  and  either  the  originals 
or  the  duplicates  are  presented  to  his  friends. 

Those  who  know  of -this  schoolmaster's  interest  often 
send  him  specimens  of  rare  flowers  from  a  distance, 
and  he  is  always  ready  to  exchange  for  these  the 
flowers  of  his  own  locality.  His  diary  contains  re- 
peated mention  of  some  rare  walk,  some  new  flower,  or 
the  special  beauty  of  an  old  friend.  The  activity  of 
the  man  in  this  field  of  his  endeavor  is  striking.  'His 
diary  records  that  in  1903  he  made  eighty-eight  botan- 
ical journeys,  secured  and  mounted  over  four  hundred 
specimens,  and  had  twenty  correspondents  on  botan- 
ical subjects.  And  all  this  time  our  botanist  has  been 
a  teacher  of  mathematics.  But  he  has  found  in  botany 
an  opportunity  for  out-of-door  life,  a  means  of  health, 
and  a  diversion  from  his  regular  duties.  In  short, 
Professor  Hopper  attributes  his  present  preserved 
health  to  his  interest  in  botany,  and  he  recommends 
the  rule:  "  Ride  a  hobby  and  keep  young." 

But  what  of  the  teaching  of  Zephaniah  Hopper  all 
these  years?  Long  ago  he  took  as  his  ideal :  "  Never 


102         NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS. 

be  old,"  and,  "  Be  a  friend  of  the  boys."  Those  who 
know  the  man  can  testify  how  well  he  has  realized 
these  ideals.  At  eighty-three  he  walked  with  a 
sprightly,  strong  step;  his  carriage  was  erect,  and  his 
attention  alert.  With  a  show  of  pride  he  says,  "  I 
walk  from  my  house  to  the  school  (a  distance  of  six- 
teen city  blocks,  or  nearly  two  miles)  in  exactly 
twenty-seven  minutes,"  adding  with  a  twinkle  of  the 
eye,  "  which  I  think  is  as  well  as  I  could  have  done 
sixty  years  ago."  In  considering  Professor  Hopper, 
one  is  reminded  at  many  points  of  Dr.  Thomas  Ar- 
nold ;  he  has  Arnold's  pride  of  physical  strength,  and 
the  feeling  that  any  show  of  weakness  would  lower 
him  in  the  estimation  of  his  pupils.  On  a  visit  to  his 
room  when  he  was  past  eighty-two,  he  was  found 
standing. in  the  center  of  the  room;  there  were  a  dozen 
boys  at  the  board ;  everything  was  attention,  and  the 
work  was  going  on  admirably.  One  felt  that  this 
quiet,  positive  man  might  be  sixty,  but  senses  belied 
the  statement  that  he  was  above  fourscore. 

The  secret  of  Professor  Hopper's  success  in  teaching 
is  preparedness  and  faithful  devotion  to  details.  Reg- 
ularly he  arrives  at  school  at  five  minutes  before  eight ; 
he  goes  to  his  room,  lays  out  his  working  materials, 
and  prepares  for  every  detail  of  the  day's  work.  No 
general  ever  planned  a  campaign  with  greater  minute- 
ness than  that  with  which  this  teacher  plans  the  work 
of  each  day.  As  a  -result  he  is  never  caught  off  his 
guard ;  he  is  prepared  for  every  emergency.  A  presi- 
dent of  the  Philadelphia  Board  of  Education,  who  was 


NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS.         103 

in  Professor  Hopper's  class  in  1854,  says  of  him  that 
he  commanded  the  respect  of  every  boy  that  came  to 
his  room;  that  his  very  presence  preserved  order.  If 
this  great  teacher  could  give  to  the  teachers  of  America 
the  practical  lesson  of  the  worth  of  preparedness,  he 
would  render  a  greater  service  than  would  be  done  by 
the  writing  of  innumerable  books  on  the  theory  of 
education. 

It  is  as  a  friend  to  the  boys  that  Professor  Hopper 
is  most  attractive.  Fairness,  friendliness,  and  cheer- 
fulness have  been  his  watchwords.  But  his  friendship 
is  no  weak  sentimentalism  that  coddles  boys  and  con- 
dones their  shortcomings;  there  are  in  his  character  a 
ruggedness  and  stern  justice,  which  are  shown  in  deal- 
ing with  dereliction;  and  yet  no  boy  ever  passed  from 
his  influence  without  feeling  that  he  had  come  under 
the  shadow  of  one  who  hated  meanness  and  loved 
nobility.  A  man  could  not  well  have  lived  for  sixty- 
three  years  in  intimate  association  with  young  lives 
and  not  love  those  for  whom  he  has  worked.  Pro- 
fessor Hopper's  colleagues  know  that  his  justice  is 
always  enforced  with  a  thought  of  the  good  of  the 
boys,  and  if  in  aught  he  errs,  it  is  in  tempering  justice 
with  too  great  mercy.  He  has  been  respected  to  a  re- 
markable degree  by  the  boys  of  the  Central  High 
School,  and  he  is  one  of  the  few  whom  the  successive 
generations  of  students  have  not  dubbed  with  a  nick- 
name. True,  his  length  of  service  has  been  the  occa- 
sion of  some  pleasant  raillery,  but  always  attended 
with  respect,  and  this  pleasantry  has  been  enjoyed. by 


104         Mi'STOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS. 

no  one  more  than  by  Professor  Hopper  himself.  A 
song  has  been  composed,  going  to  the  tune  of  "  Yan- 
kee Doodle,"  and  containing  such  lines  as : 

When  Zephaniah  was  quite  small, 
He  played  with  Billy  Penn,  sir ; 

and, 

Zephaniah  is  our  joy, 

Our  "  Grand  Old  Man  ",  our  youngest  boy. 

A  sight  never  to  be  forgotten  is  the  greeting  to  their 
old  teacher  by  the  Central  High  School  alumni  at  their 
annual  reunions.  He  is  always  called  on  for  a  speech, 
and  he  always  gets  the  same  generous,  hearty  welcome. 
His  face  beams  with  pride  as  he  speaks  to  the  large 
body  of  men  whom  he  has  helped  to  train;  many  of 
these  men  have  come  to  high  honors,  and  not  a  few  of 
them  seem  Professor  Hopper's  seniors.  As  one  con- 
templates this  scene,  he  cannot  avoid  the  conclusion : 
To  be  such  a  man,  and  sit  thus  enthroned  in  the  heart's 
affection,  is  better  than  to  wear  a  crown  of  empire. 

In  passing  to  his  broader  life,  we  find  Professor 
Hopper  a  useful  citizen,  a  Christian  gentleman  of 
temperate  habits  and  refined  tastes.  He  is  probably 
without  an  enemy  in  the  world.  Of  him  in  truth  we 
could  say :  "  He  knows  not  how  to  speak  a  word  of 
harshness  or  how  to  make  a  foe."  In  these  last  days 
there  come  from  every  side  tributes  to  his  life  and 
work.  His  name  has  become  a  household  word  in 
Philadelphia.  John  Wanamaker  writes  his  congratu- 
lations, and  adds :  "  I  remember  you  almost  back  to 
my  first  days  in  Philadelphia." 


NESTOR  OF  AMERICAN  SCHOOLMASTERS.         105 

In  these  hurrying  times  men  have  come  and  gone 
and  are  forgotten,  but  here  in  the  serenity  of  youthful 
age  is  one  who  has  gone  on  and  on,  and  whose  influ- 
ence will  go  on  forever.  Not  only  is  Professor  Hop- 
per a  great  teacher,  but  he  is  a  remarkable  example  of 
the  blessings  of  a  life  lived  without  worldly  ambition 
or  ostentation ;  he  has  the  rewards  of  a  man  who  seeks 
in  a  quiet  way  to  do  day  by  day  the  task  which  the 
successive  days  bring.  When  asked  in  1906  to  express 
a  sentiment  with  regard  to  his  past  life,  he  said  in 
words  choked  with  feeling:  "When  I  reflect  that  I 
have  had  continuous  employment  as  a  teacher  since 
1842,  that  I  have  had  good  health,  and  felt  in  love 
with  my  work,  I  cannot  find  words  to  express  my 
gratitude." 


VII. 

PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS. 

THE  1908  Report  of  the  American  Bar  Associa- 
tion's Committee  on  Canons  of  Professional  Ethics 
gives  further  evidence  of  the  tendency  to  recognize  a 
higher  standard  of  conduct,  and  to  give  effect  to  claims 
of  public  welfare  upon  those  who  are  following  what 
are  properly  called  the  liberal  professions.  An  old 
story  goes  that  an  Irishman,  in  passing  a  tombstone 
on  which  there  was  the  epitaph,  "A  Great  Lawyer 
and  an  Honest  Man,"  remarked,  "  Faith  and  has  it 
come  to  burying  two  men  in  one  grave?"  The  law- 
yers now  come  forward  with  the  claim  that  honesty  is 
a  basal  requisite  for  one  to  become  a  great  lawyer. 

In  1903  the  American  Medical  Association  adopted 
the  so-called  Principles  of  Medical  Ethics,  which  were 
copyrighted  in  the  name  of  the  Association  and  were 
printed  and  distributed  by  the  Association  as  what 
was  termed  a  "  suggestive  and  advisory  document." 
This  is  a  compact  summary  in  three  chapters.  The 
first  is  under  the  heading,  "  The  Duties  of  the  Physi- 
cians to  Their  Patients;"  the  second,  "The  Duties  of 
Physicians  to  Each  Other  and  the  Profession  at 
106 


PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS.  107 

Large;"  and  the  third,  "The  Duties  of  the  Medical 
Profession  to  the  General  Public."  In  the  statement 
of  the  duties  of  the  physician  to  his  patients,  there  are 
eight  general  sections  covering  a  wide  range  of  inter- 
est, and  in  general,  we  can  say  that  there  is  in  this 
statement  a  careful  definition  of  a  physician's  duty, 
and  directions  for  a  course  of  conduct  in  almost  all 
relations  that  may  arise. 

There  have  been  numerous  evidences  in  the  local 
medical  associations  that  this  code  of  principles  is  not 
a  dead  letter  and  that  the  professional  organizations 
have  been  binding  these  rules  upon  their  fellow  prac- 
titioners and  bringing  to  discredit,  both  in  their  own 
associations  and  in  the  public  mind,  those  who  will 
not  abide  by  the  standards. 

Similarly  the  American  Electrical  Engineers,  at  a 
convention  in  Niagara  Falls  in  1907,  referred  the 
question  of  a  code  of  ethics  to  the  Board  of  Directors, 
and  this  board  later,  by  resolution,  formally  approved 
the  drafting  of  such  a  code.  A  preliminary  statement 
was  drawn  up  and  presented  to  the  engineering  pro- 
fession. The  material  in  this  statement  is  classified 
under  six  general  heads,  the  enumeration  of  which 
indicates  the  character  of  the  topics  dealt  with.  First, 
"  General  Principles;"  second,  "  Relations  of  the  Elec- 
trical Engineer  to  his  Employer,  Customer  or  Client;" 
third,  "  Relations  of  the  Electrical  Engineer  to  the 
Ownership  of  the  Records  of  his  Work ;"  fourth,  "  Re- 
lation of  the  Electrical  Engineer  to  the  Public;"  fifth, 


108  PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS. 

"  Relation  of  the  Electrical  Engineer  to  the  Engineer- 
ing Fraternity ;"  and  sixth,  "  Relation  of  the  Engineer 
to  the  Standards  of  his  Profession."  This  preliminary 
draft  was  distributed  to  the  members  of  the  Institute 
of  Electrical  Engineers  with  a  request  for  suggested 
changes,  to  be  revised  and  presented  for  final  adoption 
at  a  future  meeting. 

This  same  subject  was  made  the  theme  of  the  presi- 
dential address  before  the  American  Institute  of  Min- 
ing Engineers  in  1908.  Mining  engineers  were  cau- 
tioned against  making  favorable  reports  on  properties 
for  sale  in  cases  where  they  were  to  receive  payment 
if  a  sale  resulted  from  their  reports.  An  engineer,  it 
was  said,  must  needs  have  an  unparalleled  reputation 
for  integrity  to  endure  that  revelation  of  this  situation 
which  he  cannot  without  dishonesty  withhold.  It  will 
be  observed  that  the  practice  here  criticized  amounts 
in  effect  to  the  contingent-fee  abuse  of  the  lawyers,  to 
be  considered  later  in  this  essay. 

In  the  teaching  profession  and  in  the  ministry, 
standards  of  conduct  are  well  understood  as  bearing 
on  the  relations  which  one  sustains  to  his  immediate 
constituency,  to  those  who  are  carrying  on  the  same 
sort  of  work  as  himself,  and  to  the  general  public. 
Recently  the  suggestion  has  been  advanced  in  several 
quarters  that  a  definite  formulation  of  professional 
ethics  for  these  two  callings  would  be  of  advantage. 
The  statement  that  a  formal  code  is  necessary  for  the 


PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS.  109 

professional  conduct  of  clergymen  appears  at  first  like 
carrying  the  demand  for  professional  ethics  to  an  ex- 
treme, and  yet  one  who  observes  soon  sees  that  among 
clergymen  and  in  the  work  of  the  churches  there  is 
much  regrettable  jealousy  and  overreaching.  More 
regard  for  the  general  good,  which  is  the  underlying 
principle  of  professional  ethics,  would  result  in  greater 
harmony  among  the  churches  and  a  larger  usefulness 
of  clergymen. 

The  State  Educational  Association  of  Alabama  set 
an  example  to  similar  associations  elsewhere  by  adopt- 
ing in  1909  a  code  of  ethics  for  teachers.  Twenty-two 
years  earlier  the  State  Bar  Association  of  the  same 
State  led  the  way  by  adopting  the  first  formal  code  of 
ethics  for  lawyers. 

The  Alabama  Teacher's  Code  opens  with  a  state- 
'ment  that  its  aim  is  "  to  assist  teachers  in  settling  diffi- 
cult questions  of  professional  conduct,  to  quicken  their 
sympathies  for  each  other,  to  exalt  their  professional 
ideals,  etc."  Quotation  with  approval  of  such  senti- 
ments as  "  Teaching  is  the  noblest  of  professions  and 
the  sorriest  of  trades,"  and  "  Example  and  practice 
are  more  efficient  than  precept  and  theory,"  can  but 
have  a  helpful  effect. 

Thirty-three  "  Rules  and  Principles  "  make  up  the 
Alabama  Code.  These  lay  upon  teachers  the  neces- 
sity for  a  high  standard  of  personal  and  professional 
conduct.  Teachers  are  enjoined  to  refrain. from  "  all 
vocations  or  pursuits  whereby  the  profession  of  teach- 


1 1 0  PROFESSfONA L  E  THICS. 

ing  may  be  brought  into  disrepute."  They  are  cau- 
tioned against  "  undue  political  ambitions  and  activ- 
ities." Teachers  are  also  commanded  to  support  the 
dignity  and  good  name  of  Boards  of  Education,  super- 
intendents and  others  in  authority.  The  merit  system 
of  appointments  of  teachers  is  endorsed,  and  it  is  urged 
that  teachers  be  prompt  and  zealous  in  urging  such  a 
system  of  appointments.  Mere  release  of  a  Board 
of  Education,  it  is  held,  "  is  not  sufficient  to  justify  a 
teacher  in  terminating  a  contract  in  a  shorter  time  than 
that  allowed  by  law." 

Exploitation  of  a  teacher's  reputation  by  compli- 
mentary press  notices,  or  advertisements,  is  condemned 
as  undignified  and  unprofessional.  Teachers  are  also 
commanded  not  "  to  bid  for  positions."  "  It  is  un- 
professional, undignified  and  dishonorable  for  a 
teacher  to  apply  for  a  position  not  avowedly  vacant." 
Teachers  are  similarly  charged  not  to  use  any  influ- 
ence whatever  to  handicap  the  present  incumbent  in  a 
position  or  create  a  vacancy.  It  is  declared  to  be  un- 
dignified for  a  teacher  to  succeed  to  a  given  position 
at  a  salary  lower  than  was  paid  to  his  predecessor. 

The  practice  of  using  the  teaching  profession  as  "  a 
stepping-stone  to  other  more  profitable  and  so-called 
higher  professions  "  is  deprecated  and  condemned  in 
strong  terms.  Adverse  criticism  of  a  predecessor  or  a 
fellow-teacher  is  held  to  be  "  unethical,"  and  teachers 
are  urged  to  stand  together  and  help  each  other  in 
promoting  a  common  cause.  The  extent  to  which  the 
suggested  help  to  each  other  is  carried  is  shown  by  a 


PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS.  Ill 

rule  which  says,  "  Surviving  teachers  are  especially 
enjoined  to  attend  carefully  to  the  education  and  em- 
ployment of  the  children  of  deceased  teachers." 

Wisconsin  teachers  also  have  prepared  a  formal 
statement  of  principles  to  serve  as  a  standard  of  con- 
duct. This  is  briefer  and  more  general,  though  sim- 
ilar to  the  code  adopted  in  Alabama;  Beyond  ques- 
tion, many  teachers  are  acting  even  in  advance  of  these 
Codes  of  Ethics,  but  many  are  not,  and  the  formal 
fixing  of  standards  of  conduct  would  be  a  gain  to  the 
whole  craft  of  teachers,  and  to  the  larger  interests 
which  they  serve. 

Reputable  newspapers  and  magazines,  and  publish- 
ing-houses as. well,  maintain  a  high  standard  of  pro- 
fessional conduct.  One  gives  out  definite  interviews 
to  the  great  dailies  with  confidence  that  these  will  be 
used  as  they  are  given  out,  and  this  confidence  is  rarely 
betrayed:  Matter  is  kept  for  days  by  newspapers, 
according  to  promise,  and  it  is  made  public  only  at  a 
time  agreed  upon.  It  is  said  of  Charles  A.  Dana,  one 
of  the  greatest  newspaper  editors  of  the  last  genera- 
tion, that  he  chose  men  as  much  for  character  as  for 
brains.  Integrity  and  square  dealing  are  the  rule  in 
journalism,  and  one  who  departs  from  these  loses  caste 
with  his  craft  and  ceases  to  have  influence  with  the 
public. 

Accountancy  is  one  of  the  youngest  callings  making 
claims  for  recognition  as  a  liberal  profession,  and 


112  PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS. 

closely  related  as  it  is  to  business  practice,  it  is  most 
natural  that  those  who  are  engaged  in  it  should  raise 
the  question  of  the  ethics  by  which  they  should  be 
guided.  The  Certified  Public  Accountants  in  recent 
conventions  have  given  a  leading  place  to  a  discussion 
of  professional  ethics,  and  approved  the  provision  for 
a  standing  committee  to  consider  cases  of  doubtful 
practice  and  report  their  findings  in  such  cases  to  the 
annual  meeting.  It  can  be  well  seen  that  here  is  a 
large  field  in  which  abstract  principles  of  justice  must 
be  adapted  to  difficult  relations  in  a  daily  course  of 
conduct.  The  accountants  have  sought  to  make  a  line 
of  distinction  between  what  in  a  broad  way  they  term 
business  competition  and  professional  competition; 
and  as  with  the  other  professions,  there  is  with  them 
a  recognition  of  three  relations  which  the  accountant 
sustains  in  carrying  on  his  work.  These  are  set  down 
as  his  relation  to  his  client,  his  relation  to  the  general 
public,  and  his  relation  to  his  fellow-practitioners.  It 
is  held,  and  rightly,  that  the  relations  of  the  account- 
ant to  his  client  do  not  justify  him  in  doing  violence 
to  his  obligations  to  the  general  public,  and  that  he 
should  have  full  regard  for  a  high  standard  of  conduct 
in  relation  to  his  professional  brethren. 

The  need  for  professional  ethics  is  perhaps  more 
obvious  in  the  law  than  in  any  other  of  the  liberal  call- 
ings, and  here  is  well  illustrated  the  fact  that  a  new- 
comer in  a  profession  is  required  for  his  own  success 
to  follow  the  practice  of  those  in  the  profession  when 


PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS.  113 

he  enters.  Thus  exists  the  need  for  defined  standards 
and  high  ideals.  More  than  fifty  years  ago  Justice 
Sharswood  declared  of  the  law  that  so  many  tempta- 
tions arose  in  its  practice,  and  so  many  difficult  ques- 
tions of  duty  were  presented  that  in  the  path  of  the 
young  practitioner  there  were  "  pitfalls  and  mantraps 
at  every  step."  Nor  have  the  difficulties  for  lawyers 
and  the  need  for  clearly-defined  professional  standards 
diminished  in  recent  years.  The  growth  of  new  eco- 
nomic interests  with  new  forms  of  practice,  known  as 
corporation  law,  and  the  conflict  of  private  gain  and 
public  welfare,  present  a  new  need  for  a  standard 
which  happily  the  lawyers  are  now  seeking  to  establish. 

The  attempt  to  set  a  standard  of  conduct  for  lawyers 
is  not  new,  nor  is  it  confined  to  our  own  country. 
Christian  V  of  Denmark  and  Norway  promulgated 
such  a  code  in  1683.  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  in  1765 
formulated  a  prayer  for  lawyers  which  was  a  plea  for 
knowledge,  "  to  direct  the  doubtful  and  instruct  the 
ignorant,  to  prevent  wrongs  and  terminate  conten- 
tions." In  the  German  States  of  modern  times  there 
is  administered  to  lawyers  a  binding  oath  for  the  ex- 
action of  fair  fees,  for  aid  in  the  settlement  and  not 
the  continuance  of  suits,  and  for  promoting  justice  and 
the  public  welfare. 

David  Hoffman,  of  Baltimore,  early  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  formulated  fifty  resolves  concerning  the 
professional  conduct  of  lawyers,  which  resolves  gave 
wholesome  regard  for  the  rights  and  dignity  of  judges, 
opponents,  witnesses  and  clients.  One  of  these  decla- 


114  PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS. 

rations  was  a  refusal  on  the  part  of  a  lawyer  to  become 
a  "  partner  in  knavery  "  with  a  client  to  accomplish 
unworthy  ends.  The  last  of  Hoffman's  resolutions 
was  that  the  lawyer  should  read  the  preceding  forty- 
nine  resolutions  at  least  twi.ce  every  year  of  his  pro- 
fessional life. 

Justice  George  Sharswood's  book  on  Professional 
Ethics  was  published  first  in  1854.  Of  this  book  a 
distinguished  lawyer  later  said,  "  It  deserves  to  be 
written  in  letters  of  gold."  This  book  has  remained 
up  to  the  present  a  classic  on  the  subject  with  which  it 
deals.  In  1907  Sharswood's  work  was  printed  as  one 
of  the  reports  of  the  American  Bar  Association  and 
distributed  gratuitously  to  all  its  members — the  only 
book  ever  thus  reprinted.  Its  influence  is  obvious  on 
the  codes  of  professional  ethics  adopted  by  the  bar 
associations  in  several  states  and  the  American  Bar 
Association. 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing,  repeated  declarations 
have  been  made  against  questionable  practices  by  law- 
yers, and  several  of  these  have  lately  been  gathered 
together  and  circulated  by  the  American  Bar  Associa- 
tion. Abraham  Lincoln  advised  lawyers  to  "discour- 
age litigation."  Said  he,  "  Point  out  how  nominal 
winners  are  often  the  real  losers."  And  again,  "As  a 
peacemaker,  the  lawyer  has  a  superior  opportunity  of 
being  a  good  man."  He  advised  such  a  "  moral  tone  " 
in  the  law  that  bad  men  would  be  driven  out  of  the 
profession. 

Codes  of  legal  ethics  have  been  adopted  by  the  bar 


PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS.  115 

associations  "of  quite  a  group  of  states,  the  first  of 
which  was  Alabama  in  1887.  In  addition  to  the  for- 
mal codes,  oaths  of  admission  to  the  bar  in  a  number 
of  states  prescribed  high  standards  of  conduct  for  law- 
yers. One  of  the  most  advanced  of  the  oaths  of  ad- 
mission is  that  of  Washington,  which  has  been  made  a 
model  for  several  other  states,  and  which  in  its  main 
'  features  has  been  recently  approved  by  the  American 
Bar  Association. 

At  the  1906  meeting  of  the  American  Bar  Associa- 
tion, a  committee  reported  favorably  on  the  advisabil- 
ity and  practicability  of  formulating  and  adopting  a 
Canon  of  Professional  Ethics.  A  further  report  was 
made  at  the  Portland  meeting  in  1907,  at  which  time 
the  Bar s  Association  ordered  a  committee  to  draft  a 
Canon  of  Professional  Ethics  and  have  it  ready  for 
adoption  at  the  1908  meeting  of  the  Association. 
Henry  St.  George  Tucker  of  Virginia  was  chairman 
of  this  committee  and  Lucien  Hugh  Alexander  of 
Pennsylvania  was  its  secretary.  On  the  committee 
were  such  distinguished  jurists  as  Justice  David  J. 
Brewer  and  Judge  Alton  B.  Parker.  Justice  Brewer, 
in  writing  on  the  work  of  the  committee,  said  that  the 
bar  will  lose  its  place  unless  it  is  a  leader  not  merely 
in  brain  strength,  but  also  in  moral  power. 

The  canons  as  prepared  by  the  committee  were  sub- 
mitted to  the  members  of  the  Association  in  May, 
1908,  for  preliminary  consideration,  and  as  an  evi- 
dence of  the  interest  which  they  elicited  more  than  one 
thousand  communications  relative  to  them  were  re- 


116  PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS. 

ceived  by  the  committee  before  the  August  meeting  of 
the  Association.  In  the  main  there  was  cordial  en- 
dorsement of  the  canons  which  the  committee  had  pre- 
pared, and  after  some  slight  changes  in  wording, 
which  were  made  in  advance  of  the  meeting,  and  one 
amendment  on  the  floor  of  the  convention,  the  canons 
were  duly  adopted  and  promulgated  as  an  authorita- 
tive standard  of  professional  conduct. 

The  code  of  the  American  Bar  Association  is 
throughout  an  evidence  of  a  high  regard  for  public 
rights  and  general  welfare.  Here  is  an  attempt  to 
maintain  standards  which  make  lawyers  in  reality 
"  high  priests  of  justice."  Thus  the  legal  profession 
is  tending  to  the  standards  set  by  Sharswood  when  he 
considers  ethics  under  two  heads :  those  duties  that 
the  lawyer  owes  to  the  public  or  commonwealth;  and 
those  which  he  owes  to  his  client,  his  professional 
brethren,  and  the  court.  The  first  of  these  is  properly 
held  to  be  more  far-reaching  than  the  second,  and 
should  outweigh  it  in  case  of  conflict,  for,  said  Shars- 
wood, "  there  should  be  a  feeling  in  the  public  mind 
that,  taken  together,  all  the  machinery  of  the  law  is  a 
strong  castle  in  which  dwells  justice."  A  lawyer  as 
well  as  a  judge  should  be  regarded  as  a  permanent 
officer  whose  business  it  is  to  promote  right.  And  if 
he  does  not  contribute  to  that  end,  he  defeats  the  very 
purpose  for  which  law  exists,  and  denies  his  own  right 
to  be.  Incidentally  one  of  the  sections  of  the  recent 
canon  declares,  "  The  profession  is  a  branch  of  the 
administration  of  justice  and  not  a  mere  money-getting 
trade." 


PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS.  117 

The  sections  of  the  American  Bar  Association 
canons  which  are  of  most  interest  to  the  general  public 
are  those  limiting  litigation,  those  with  regard  to  fees, 
and  the  one  which  defines  the  relations  which  a  lawyer 
may  sustain  to  his  client  whom  he  knows  to  be  guilty. 

Excessive  fees  are  disapproved,  and  the  rule  is  laid 
down  that  the  client's  ability  to  pay  is  no  excuse  for  an 
overcharge,  though  poverty  is  a  good  reason  for  a  low 
charge,  or  even  no  charge  at  all.  Contracts  for  a  con- 
tingent fee,  dependent  on  the  issues  of  the  litigation, 
are  looked  upon  with  disfavor,  and  it  is  expressly 
stated  that  "  the  lawyer  should  not  purchase  any  in- 
terest in  the  subject-matter  of  the  litigation  which  he 
is  conducting;"  and  it  is  further  declared  that  in  states 
where  contingent  fees  are  sanctioned  by  law,  they 
should  be  under  the  supervision  of  the  courts,  so  that 
the  client  may  be  protected  from  unjust  charges. 
Under  the  laws  of  champerty  and  maintenance,  con- 
tingent fees  are  prohibited  in  England,  and  they  are 
also  restricted  in  some  American  states.  A  limited 
observation  serves  to  confirm  Justice  Sharswood's 
strictures  on  contingent  fees :  they  promote  litigation, 
and  the  practice  is  well  termed  "  purchasing  "  a  suit 
at  law;  contingent  fees  make  a  lawyer  unduly  inter- 
ested in  winning  his  case  at  all  hazards ;  and  in  the 
end  they  establish  a  relation  of  higgling  between  the 
lawyer  and  his  client.  A  witty  Irish  litigant  when 
asked  the  meaning  of  contingent  fee  said:  "If  the 
case  is  lost,  the  lawyer  won't  get  anything;  if  the  case 
is  won,  I  won't  get  anything."  Of  course  we  are 


118  PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS. 

familiar  with  the  defense  of  this  practice,  that  it  is 
"  the  poor  man's  fee  "  and  that  without  it  some  cases 
could  not  be  presented  for  trial;  but  this  defense 
scarcely  appeals,  especially  if  lawyers  were  to  live  up 
to  the  spirit  of  section  twelve  of  the  Canon,  in  which 
there  is  the  suggestion  of  small  fees  or  free  service  for 
those  in  poverty.  In  a  last  analysis,  the  practice  of 
conducting  suits  for  contingent  fees  establishes  a 
wrong  relation  between  the  lawyer  and  his  client,  be- 
tween the  case  being  tried  and  the  court  trying  the 
same,  and  such  practices  will  probably  in  the  long  run 
result  in  more  harm  than  good.  We  can  then  but  ex- 
press the  hope  that  lawyers  will  not  in  this  particular 
avail  themselves  of  the  permission  which  the  law  some- 
times allows  them. 

To  a  layman,  the  Canon  seems  insufficient  in  one 
particular  at  least,  namely,  in  the  relation  which  the 
lawyer  should  sustain  to  his  client.  The  statement  is 
made  that  "  a  lawyer  should  not  do  for  his  client  what 
his  own  sense  of  honor  would  prohibit  him  from  doing 
for  himself."  This  is  well,  as  is  also  the  third  specifi- 
cation in  the  suggested  oath  for  admission  to  the  prac- 
tice of  law  earlier  administe/ed  in  the  state  of  Wash- 
ington and  some  other  states,  namely,  "  I  will  not 
counsel  or  maintain  any  suit  or  proceeding  which  shall 
appear  to  me  to  be  unjust,  nor  any  defense  except  such 
as  I  believe  to  be  honestly  debatable  under  the  law  of 
the  land."  No  doubt  the  position  taken  in  this  part  of 
the  oath  is  in  advance  of  that  taken  by  most  writers  on 
legal  ethics,  as  it  is  in  advance  of  the  practice  largely 


PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS.  119 

prevailing.  But  the  Canon  and  the  practices  of  the 
legal  profession  do  not  seem  to  come  up  to  this  high 
position. 

Sharswood,  in  his  Professional  Ethics,  held  it  to 
be  proper  for  one  to  enter  on  the  defense  of  a  client 
even  though  he  knew  the  client  to  be  guilty,  and  he 
argued  that  such  a  course  was  not  "  screening  the 
guilty  from  punishment,"  but  it  was  to  make  sure  that 
the  accused  had  a  fair  trial  and  was  convicted  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  law  and  established  precedent;  but 
in  another  connection  the  same  writer  said  it  was  in 
some  measure  the  duty  of  the  counsel  to  be  the  keeper 
of  the  conscience  of  his  client,  and  he  remarked  on 
what  was  "termed  an  important  clause  in  the  official 
oath  of  his  time,  that  a  lawyer  should  "delay  no  man's 
cause  for  lucre  or  malice,"  a  clause  which  is  continued 
as  part  of  the  oath  recommended  to  the  states  by  the 
American  Bar  Association. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  relations  of  a  lawyer  to  his 
client  should  be  purely  professional ;  to  society  in  gen- 
eral he  owes  a  higher  duty  than  to  his  'client,  which 
higher  duty  is  in  brief  the  promotion  of  the  right.  A 
comparison  has  well  been  made  under  this  head  with 
the  relation  of  a  surgeon  to  his  patient.  If  a  patient 
wishes  an  abortion  committed  and  is  willing  to  pay 
for  the  service,  the  surgeon  has  a  higher  duty  which 
precludes  him  from  doing  the  thing  asked.  The  fif- 
teenth section  of  the  Canon,  under  the  head,  "  How 
Far  a  Lawyer  May  Go  in  Supporting  a  Client's  Cause," 
says  in  the  first  place:  "  Nothing  operates  more  cer- 


120  PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS. 

tainly  to  create  or  foster  popular  prejudice  against 
lawyers  as  a  class,  and  to  deprive  the  profession  of  the 
full  measure  of  public  esteem  and  confidence  which 
belongs  to  the  proper  discharge  of  its  duties,  than  does 
the  false  claim  often  set  up  by  the  unscrupulous  in  de- 
fense of  questionable  transactions,  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  lawyer  to  do  whatever  may  enable  him  to  suc- 
ceed in  winning  his  client's  cause." 

One  finds  difficulty  in  harmonizing  the  statement 
made  above  with  the  following  in  the  same  section :  a 
lawyer  "  owes  entire  devotion  to  the  interests  of  his 
client,  warm  zeal  in  the  maintenance  and  defense  of 
his  cause  and  the  exertion  of  the  utmost  skill  and  abil- 
ity, to  the  end  that  nothing  may  be  taken  or  withheld 
from  him  save  by  the  rules  of  the  law,  legally  applied." 
While  this  may  not  be  contrary  to  the  proceeding,  it 
permits  a  course  of  conduct  not  without  grave  dangers. 
Nor  does  the  latter  part  of  the  same  section,  which 
again  declares  a  high  ideal,  viz.,  that  the  lawyer 
"  must  obey  his  own  conscience  and  not  that  of  his 
client,"  entirely  remove  the  suggestion  of  the  sentence 
above  cited.  Lawyers  by  aiming  to  defeat  justice  in 
aiding  the  guilty  to  escape  bring  their  profession 
under  the  very  reproach  from  which  they  seek  to  de- 
liver it. 

These  comments  are  not  made  as  strictures  on  what 
must  prove  a  valuable  document.  They  are  urged 
rather  to  indicate  if  possible  a  higher  standard  of  con- 
duct. The  opening  statement  of  the  committee's  re- 
port is,  after  all,  the  most  important  one,  namely,  that 


PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS.  121 

no  code  can  particularize  all  the  duties  of  a  lawyer, 
and  the  enumeration  of  some  duties  should  not  be  con- 
sidered as  denying  the  existence  of  others  equally 
binding.  In  brief,  the  spirit  of  this  code  is  the  spirit 
of  Sharwood's  Ethics — "  ncr  man  can  be  truly  a  great 
lawyer  who  is  not  in  every  sense  of  the  word  a  good 
man."  Now,  more  than  in  Justice  Sharwood's  time, 
are  many  temptations  to  a  young  lawyer,  and  there  is 
grave  need  that  there  be  held  up  the  ideal,  "  the  strict- 
est principles  of  integrity  and  honor  are  his  only 
safety." 

The  American  Bar  Association's  committee  urged 
the  distribution  of  its  report  among  the  several  state 
bar  associations,  with  the  thought  that  the  adoption  of 
the  Canon  by  the  state  associations  and  the  establish- 
ment of  the  suggested  oath  of  admission  to  the  bar  by 
state  statute  would  give  a  practical  method  of  accom- 
plishing the  ends  desired.  Several  states  promptly 
complied  with  the  suggested  action.  The  committee 
further  wisely  recommended  that  instruction  in  pro- 
fessional ethics  be  made  a  part  of  the  law-school  course 
in  preparation  for  admission  to  the  bar. 

The  action  of  the  American  Bar  Association  in 
formulating  and  adopting  a  standard  of  conduct  can- 
not fail  to  have  a  far-reaching  influence  on  the  legal 
profession  and  all  related  callings.  The  closing  words 
of  Sharwood's  Ethics,  the  spirit  of  which  is  embodied 
in  the  Bar  Association's  Canon,  are  as  a  clarion  call 
not  to  the  legal  profession  alone,  but  to  all  occupa- 
tions :  "  Let  us  beware,  then,  of  raising  these  objects 


122  PROFESSIONAL  ETHICS. 

of  ambition,  wealth,  learning,  honor  and  influence, 
worthy  though  they  be,  into  an  undue  importance. 
Nor  let  us  in  the  too  ardent  pursuit  of  what  are  only 
means,  lose  sight  of  the  great  end  of  our  being." 


VIII. 

A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM. 

IDENTITY  of  the  ideas  of  fraud  and  of  success  in 
business  is  very  old.  The  Greeks  looked  upon  gains 
from  trade  as  ignoble,  and  in  some  cases  they  disquali- 
fied successful  merchants  from  holding  office.  With 
the  Romans,  the  god  of  thieves  was  also  the  god  of 
merchants,  and  Cicero  expressed  the  prejudice  of  his 
time  in  a  statement  that  retail  trade  was  vile  and  sor- 
did, and  that  it  could  thrive  only  by  much  lying.  The 
German  Tauschen  for  trade,  and  Tauschen  for  decep- 
tion, show  this  same  identity.  "  Business,"  Tallyrand 
remarked,  "means  other  men's  money;"  and  in  the 
present  times  it  has  often  been  felt  that  it  has  meant 
also  getting  the  blood  and  souls  of  others. 

A  business  sentiment  frequently  expressed — that  in 
placing  investments  a  knave  is  to  be  trusted  sooner 
than  a  fool — implies  that  business  men  are  either  of 
the  knave  or  of  the  fool  class.  "  I  pick  out  a  good 
butcher  and  '  stand  '  by  him,"  was  the  explanation  of 
a  housewife  whose  table  was  always  well  served  with 
meats,  and  so  we  might  multiply  the  evidences  to  show 
the  popular  notion  that  business  morality  is  low. 

In  the  recent  large  accumulations  of  money  there 

123 


124  A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM. 

are  evidences  of  demoralization  due  to  riches,  and  the 
corruption  of  morals.  "  Money  hunger  "  has  been  a 
passion  appealing  to  our  time  in  many  ways.  Says 
Bishop  Spaulding:  "  It  is  plain  that  our  besetting  sin, 
as  a  people,  is  not  intemperance  or  unchastity,  but  dis- 
honesty. From  the  watering  and  manipulating  of 
stocks  to  the  adulteration  of  food  and  drink,  from  the 
booming  of  towns  and  lands  to  the  selling  of  votes  and 
the  buying  of  office,  from  the  halls  of  Congress  to  the 
policeman's  beat,  from  the  capitalist  who  controls 
trusts  and  syndicates  to  the  mechanic  who  does  in- 
ferior work,  the  taint  of  dishonesty  is  everywhere." 

Business  under  modern  conditions  has  changed  in  its 
methods,  and  as  President  Hadley  points  out,  evi- 
dences are  not  wanting  that  men  have  one  standard  of 
conduct  in  their  private  life  and  another  in  their  busi- 
ness. Our  moral  ideas  have  not  been  applied  to  the 
new  forms  of  business  attending  the  growth  of  corpor- 
ation management.  Stockholders  have  sought  to  avoid 
their  responsibility  by  leaving  all  to  the  boards  of 
directors,  who  have  been  strictly  held  to  show  a  gain 
in  business.'  The  morality  of  personal  conduct  has  not 
been  applied  to  modern  corporations;  as  directors, 
men  have  either  failed  to  direct,  or  they  have  done 
things  they. would  denounce  in  their  personal  affairs. 

The  pity  of  this  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  the 
morality  of  commercial  life  reaches  out  to  the  govern- 
ment and  to  every  interest  of  society.  Dr.  H.  A. 

1  Means  and  Ends  of  Education,  146. 


A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM.  125 

Boardman,  years  ago,  well  remarked  that  the  morals 
of  society  will  become  what  those  of  its  business  men 
are,  and  that  every  community  has  the  deepest  interest 
in  keeping  its  standards  of  commercial  morality  at  the 
highest  possible  point.  Mr.  Lincoln  Steffens  speaks 
thus  of  his  studies  in  American  municipal  govern- 
ments :  "  My  groping  into  the  misgovernment  of 
cities  has  drawn  me  everywhere,  but  always  out  of 
politics  into  business  .  .  .  business  started  the  cor- 
ruption of  politics." 

The  facts  above  dwelt  upon  should  be  a  cause  of 
concern,  as  the  absence  of  morals  from  daily  business 
affairs  has  led  to  hollowness  of  life  and  the  ultimate 
failure  of  many  nations,  and  it  will  have  the  same 
effect  upon  our  country  unless  they  are  corrected. 
The  wise  Catholic  Bishop  of  Peoria  asks,  "-Is  the 
material  progress  of  the  nineteenth  century  a  cradle  or 
a  grave?"  Which  of  these  it  shall  become  depends 
upon  the  degree  to  which  high  moral  purpose  becomes 
a  part  of  our  commercial  life. 

Success  has  not  attended  the  teaching  of  abstract 
ethics  cut  off  from  practical  affairs.  Problems  in 
casuistry  prove  as  fruitless  in  affecting  conduct  as  were 
the  theoretical  speculations  of  the  schoolmen  during 
the  Middle  Ages.  The  moral  awakening  of  recent 
years  has  resulted  from  an  appeal  to  the  concrete. 
This  is  but  going  back  to  the  supreme  moral  Teacher 
of  all  time,  who  gave  the  rule,  "  Render  unto  Caesar 
the  things  that  are  Caesar's  and  render  unto  God  the 
things  that  are  God's."  "Thus,"  says  Dr.  Albert 


126  A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM. 

Shaw,  "  it  is  the  positive  and  aggressive  attitude  to- 
ward life,  the  ethics  of  action  rather  than  the  ethics  of 
negation,  that  most  control  the  modern  business  world 
and  that  may  make  our  modern  business  man  the  most 
potent  factor  for  good  in  this,  his  own,  industrial 
period."  x 

Attention  needs  to  be  directed  against  the  too  com- 
mon practice  of  spurning  commercialism  and  indus- 
trialism as  being  of  low  order,  and  therefore  to  be  de- 
spised. These  activities  must  continue,  and  the  matter 
of  supremest  moment  is  what  kind  of  industrialism 
and  commercialism  we  shall  have.  As  Dr.  Shaw  has 
again  remarked,  "If  it  is  not  possible  to  promote 
things  ideally  good  through  these  very  forces  of  com- 
mercial and  industrial  life,  then  the  outlook  is  a 
gloomy  one." 

But  one  who  carefully  notes  the  tendencies  of  our 
time  cannot  but  feel  that  within  recent  years  there  are 
evidenced  hopeful  signs  in  changing  standards  of  busi- 
ness success.  Wealth  is  now  being  classified  as  legiti- 
mate and  predatory,  and  the  latter  far  from  being,  as 
once  the  case,  a  ground  for  distinction,  brings  discredit 
to  its  possessors.  Time  was  when  money  was  regarded 
as  simply  quantitative ;  now  it  has  come  to  be  qualita- 
tive as  well ;  nor  are  we  so  prone  as  formerly  to  forget 
the  antecedents  of  wealth.  The  descendants  of  the 
predatory  rich  who  in  "  gilded  idleness  "  become  the 
drones  of  society,  are  likely  more  and  more  to  have 

1  The  Business   Career. 


A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM.  127 

visited  on  them  the  disapproval  of  public  opinion,  both 
for  their  idleness  and  for  the  sins  of  their  fathers. 

We  should  rejoice  that  this  is  so ;  and  also  that  fewer 
commercial  crimes  escape  punishment;  that  adultera- 
tion of  drugs,  medicines,  foods,  etc.,  is  guarded 
against;  that  frauds  in  railroads,  coal,  oil,  packing,  in- 
surance and  other  corporations  are  exposed;  that  there 
is  a  higher  moral  tone  in  business ;  that  commerce  and 
industry  are  coming  to  be  regarded  as  necessary  and 
worthy  callings ;  and  finally,  that  there  is  at  present  a 
genuine  desire  to  create  a  new  and  higher  commercial- 
ism. But  there  is  need  for  repeated  emphasis  of  right 
standards  of  conduct  in  commercial  life. 

Observation  confirms  the  statement  that  many  young 
men  go  into  business  with  the  feeling  that  their  profits 
will  come  from  some  sort  of  sharp  practice,  the  getting 
of  an  advantage  in  some  underhand  way.  At  the 
same  time  the  successful  and  experienced  men  who 
have  been  long  in  business  are  settled  in  their  convic- 
tion that  only  absolutely  square  dealing  pays. 

Evidences  of  the  latter  statement  are  numerous. 
Mr.  E.  L.  Scott,  of  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Co.,  recently 
stated  what  in  his  judgment  business  men  would  prefer 
as  qualities  in  those  who  come  as  their  young  helpers. 
Of  these  he  specified  four,  namely,  character,  health, 
ability  and  knowledge,  and  in  order  to  satisfy  himself 
of  the  correctness  of  his  statement  he  made  up  what  he 
termed  an  inventory  sheet  of  the  traits  of  a  large  num- 
ber of  men  in  important  positions.  Under  the  head  of 
character  he  enumerated  morality,  temperance,  indus- 


128  A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM. 

try,  capacity  for  work,  ambition,  loyalty,  obedience, 
judgment,  self-control,  sympathy,  courtesy,  cheerful- 
ness, patience,  perseverance,  courage,  enthusiasm  and 
will-power,  all  of  which  were  variously  exemplified 
and  were  deemed  important  in  winning  success. 

The  late  Baron  Rothschild,  who  sought  to  be  of  ser- 
vice in  directing  young  men,  made  a  statement  of  six- 
teen rules  which  he  had  printed  on  cards  and  distrib- 
uted to  those  whom  he  could  influence.  Among  his 
rules  were  such  as  these:  shun  liquor;  be  polite  to 
everybody;  never  tell  business  lies;  maintain  your  in- 
tegrity as  a  sacred  thing;  and  never  appear  to  be 
more  than  you  are.  Many  others  who  write  out  of 
rich  experience  and  with  mature  conviction  agree  in 
the  same  general  conclusion  that  the  man  who  violates 
his  moral  conviction  in  business  does  what  the  athlete 
would  do  if  he  cut  his  sinews  at  the  wrist. 

All  this,  it  must  needs  be  emphasized,  is  contrary  to 
the  too  popular  illusion  that  riches  and  honor  are  ex- 
clusive, that  business  men  are  required  to  select  be- 
tween wealth  and  a  good  name.  A  young  man  lately 
expressed  his  conviction  that  in  these  days  it  is  neces- 
sary to  be  a  "  specialist,"  that  it  is  "  no  use  trying  to 
be  a  good  churchman  and  a  good  business  man."  One 
lately  voiced  the  same  sentiment  in  a  statement  that 
he  would  not  allow  religion  and  business  to  interfere 
with  each  other.  We  are  too  prone  to  think  that  if  a 
man  is  rich  he  must  be  a  trickster  or  a  villain  and  that 
there  is  virtue  in  poverty.  But  this  is  not  a  correct 
deduction  from  the  great  Book  of  moral  teaching,  nor 


A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM.  129 

is  it  in  accordance  with  a  fair  observation  of  the  world. 
In  the  book  of  Proverbs  we  read  that  the  rewards  of 
humility  .and  the  fear  of  Jehovah  are  riches,  honor  and 
long  life;  and  in  the  same  connection  that  thorns  and 
snares  are  in  the  way  of  the  perverse. 

Evidence  is  very  clear  that  a  good  name  is  a  neces- 
sity for  sound  business  success.  Among  certain  of  the 
Indian  tribes  of  North  America  a  name  was  vested 
with  high  privilege  and  the  right  of  bestowing  it  was 
enjoyed  by  the  one  to  whom  it  belonged.  "  Under 
such  circumstances,"  writes  Professor  Farrand,  "  the 
name  becomes  true  property  and  the  regard  for  it  is 
much  more  than  a  matter  of  sentiment."  In  one  tribe 
a  man  who  was  not  able  to  meet  his  financial  obliga- 
tions was  privileged  to  pawn  his  name  at  a  rate  of  in- 
terest termed  excessive,  and  during  the  term  in  which 
the  name  was  in  pawn  its  original  holder  was  not  per- 
mitted to  use  it  in  any  way,  and  his  social  position  was 
lowered.  The  name  became  the  property  of  the 
holder,  and  his  position  was  raised  by  the  rank  or 
worth  of  the  name  which  had  been  pawned  to  him.1 

Something  very  like  the  above  exists  in  business. 
The  commercial  world  recognizes  what  is  known  as 
good-will.  Succeeding  businesses  have  long  been  con- 
ducted on  established  reputations,  and  from  these 
reputations  fortunes  are  often  made;  on  the  other 
hand,  a  bad  reputation  has  in  business  the  greatest  of 
disadvantages.  We  all  have  feelings  of  confidence  in 

1  Farrand,  Basis  of  American  History,  2O2,  203. 


130  A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM. 

the  goods  purchased  from  one  dealer,  and  distrust  for 
those  secured  from  another,  and  we  often  pay  consid- 
erably more  for  articles  from  a  particular  establish- 
ment, lest  we  be  tricked  by  other  dealers  who  may 
offer  what  are  actually  the  same  goods  or  better  for 
less  money.  This  is  but  paying  for  the  good  name 
which  a  commercial  establishment  has  earned.  Nor 
do  we  object  to  such  a  proceeding.  We  want  to  have 
full  confidence  in  those  with  whom  we  have  deal- 
ings, and  we  are  quite  ready  to  pay  for  that  confidence 

Though  a  good  name  may  not  be  carried  on  the 
books  of  an  establishment  as  a  resource,  the  business 
man  knows  that  this  is  a  real  commodity  which  can 
often  be  disposed  of  to  advantage.  Customers  are  not 
fools.  If  tricked  once  they  are  likely  to  go  elsewhere, 
and  thus  they  cease  to  be  customers,  and  the  business 
man  who  drives  them  away  is  the  loser.  Knavery 
cannot  be  permanently  successful.  Those  who  engage 
in  business  become  shrewd  students  of  human  nature; 
they  early  learn  to-  scent  danger,  and  draw  inference 
with  regard  to  character. 

Poor  Richard  declared,  "  Creditors  have  a  better 
memory  than  debtors,"  and,  similarly,  the  world  is 
ready  to  remember  an  irregularity  in  business  and  to 
treasure  it  against  the  one  who  practices  it.  The 
words  defaulter  and  bankrupt  follow,  to  his  future 
hurt,  the  one  who  has  been  through  these  experiences. 
Indeed,  a  bad  reputation  in  business  is  often  too  great 
a  handicap  to  be  overcome.  What  is  true  of  the  gen- 
eral reputation  of  a  commercial  house  holds  with  re- 


A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM.  131 

gard  to  staple  articles,  and  the  purpose  of  the  trade- 
mark, the  reputation  of  which  is  so  zealously  guarded, 
is  to  serve  as  a  guarantee  for  the  goods  on  which  it  is 
placed. 

In  the  famous  Black  Friday  panic  of  1873  banks 
and  business  houses  were  everywhere  closing  their 
doors.  The  old  and  highly  respected  house  of  H.  B. 
Claflin  &  Co.,  of  New  York,  was  found  to  be  involved 
for  more  than  twenty-five  millions  of  dollars,  and  ruin 
was  imminent.  The  head  of  the  firm  made  a  frank 
statement  to  his  creditors  and  asked  for  a  five  months' 
extension  of  time.  Knowing  their  man,  the  creditors 
granted  the  request,  and  inside  of  two  months  the  firm 
was  able  to  pay  its  obligations  in  full.  Of  the  head  of 
that  firm,  in  the  general  wreck  of  fortunes,  a  recent 
writer  has  said  that  "  his  personal  character  stood  like 
a  tower." 

Banking  and  credit  operations  as  well  as  general 
merchandizing  show  the  importance  of  fair  dealing. 
The  modern  banking  system  and  the  general  use  of 
credit  rest  upon  the  assumption  that  men  are  honest, 
and  banks  are  well  defined  as  institutions  that  deal  in 
credits.  Indeed,  so  largely  do  we  employ  credit  in 
modern  trade  that  it  is  everywhere  regarded  as  a  com- 
modity and  men  reckon  on  it  in  all  plans  of  merchan- 
dizing. Business  men  know  that  they  cannot  do  busi- 
ness without  meeting  their  obligations.  Mr.  David  R. 
Forgan  declares  that  the  thing  of  first  importance, 
which  business  men  wish  their  employees  to  know,  is 
that  integrity  of  character  is  the  greatest  power  of  the 


132  A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM. 

business  world.  "  The  life  of  modern  commerce,"  he 
affirms,  "  is  not  gold,  but  credit,  and  quite  ninety  per 
cent  of  all  business  is  now  conducted  on  a  credit  basis." 

The  modern  credit  system  is  complex,  but  credit- 
men  agree  that  the  most  determining  data  which  enter 
into  the  reaching  of  a  decision  in  a  doubtful  case  are 
those  with  regard  to  the  character  of  the  person  asking 
credit.  The  modern  building  and  loan  association, 
which  has  had  phenomenal  success  as  a  commercial  in- 
stitution, has,  to  a  considerable  extent,  made  the  good 
name  of  its  members  an  element  in  its  operations. 

Upright  dealing  is  profitable,  not  only  to  the  'one 
practicing  it,  but  it  is  of  advantage  to  the  society  in 
which  it  is  practiced.  Failures  of  banks,  corporations, 
private  firms  and  individuals,  with  their  damaging 
consequences,  can  only  be  avoided  by  cultivating  a 
popular  ideal  of  strict  integrity,  for  in  the  end  honesty 
alone  can  prevent  fraud. 

Taking  a  broader  view,  we  should  see  in  business  a 
social  service,  the  giving  of  something  for  something. 
This  is  more  true  than  is  generally  recognized,  even  by 
those  who  are  engaged  in  business.  Some  years  ago 
the  writer  was  engaged  in  leading  a  class  of  about 
twenty  business  men,  when  the  question  of  the  motives 
for  work  came  up;  and  several  of  the  men  stoutly 
maintained  that  their  sole  motive  was  to  make  money, 
and  to  enjoy  the  things  that  money  could  buy ;  but  on 
discussion  and  after  having  the  suggestion  of  chances 
to  make  more  money  in  disreputable  lines  of  business 
that  would  injure  their  fellows,  these  men  promptly 
changed  their  statement  of  motive. 


A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM.  133 

In  business  the  motto  too  often  has  been,  as  pointed 
out  by  Professor  Jenks  in  a  presidential  address  before 
the  American  Economic  Association,  "to  get  the  great- 
est possible  reward  for  self  in  return  for  the  least  ser- 
vice." Governor  Hughes,  with  rare  insight,  says  that 
there  is  no  greater  evil  at  present  than  the  desire  to 
get  something  for  nothing;  in  brief,  "  to  get  rich  with- 
out earning  the  money."  We  shall  all  be  ready  to 
agree  with  Patterson  DuBois  that  the  creation  of  a 
sentiment  of  contempt  for  getting  something  for  noth- 
ing would  be  a  great  gain.  Professor  Jenks  would 
make  the  motto  for  business,  "  The  largest  service  pos- 
sible for  a  just  reward."  Another  presidential  address 
before  the  same  Association,  by  Professor  Taussig, 
calls  attention  to  the  changing  tendencies  in  the  fol- 
lowing language :  "  The  worship  of  wealth  is  dimin- 
ishing and  the  respect  for  public  service  is  increasing. 
.  .  .  The  fundamental  virtues  are  not  lacking.  We 
may  hope  for  greater  repression  of  the  selfish  motives 
and  the  sordid  activities." 

There  would  be  a  great  gain  from  the  growth  of  the 
notion  that  business  is  the  supplying  of  human  needs — 
the  furnishing  of  the  food,  clothing  and  shelter  which 
make  existence  endurable  and  enjoyable.  Business  is 
not  primarily  the  making  of  profits.  Of  course  the 
laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire.  If  service  is  rendered, 
profits  have  been  earned  and  should  be  enjoyed ;  but  in 
the  last  analysis  service  should  be  the  strongest  motive 
appealing  to  the  business  man. 

The  early  and  false  theory  of  international  trade 


134  A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM. 

was  that  nations  were  natural  enemies,  and  that  each 
was  either  giving  or  taking  advantage.  It  was  be- 
lieved that'  if  one  nation  was  the  gainer  in  a  transac- 
tion, this  was  at  the  expense  of  some  other;  but  in  1 776 
Adam  Smith  declared  a  new  economic  policy,  which 
was,  in  brief,  that  nations  are  mutually  dependent,  and 
that  by  the  exchange  of  the  services  and  the  surplus 
products  of  one  region  for  the  services  and  surplus 
products  of  a  different  region  there  would  be  a  gain  in 
both  ways.  Thus  foreign  commerce  became  a  process 
of  giving  "  value  to  superfluities."  By  slow  degrees 
we  are  coming  to  see  that  commercial  exchanges  within 
a  given  country  also  are  more  than  the  taking  or  giv- 
ing of  advantage,  and  that  gains  are  not  necessarily 
secured  at  the  expense  of  some  one  else. 

Business  is  no  exception  to  the  law  that  men  are  to 
do  justice  and  love  mercy,  and  the  second  part  of  the 
injunction  is  not  less  important  than  the  first.  Keep- 
ing out  of  the  clutches  of  the  law  is  not  enough.  The 
world  is  such  that  business  cannot  thrive  with  the  penal 
code  substituted  for  the  moral  order.  A  conviction  of 
usefulness  should  be  the  business  man's  spring  of  ac- 
tion, and  his  richest  recompense.  Business  should  be 
followed  for  it  own  sake.  If  a  given  business  is  not 
one  of  the  ways  of  making  the  world  better  and  hap- 
pier it  may  well  be  forsaken.  It  is  unfortunate  indeed 
that  any  occupation  should  be  pursued  for  money- 
getting  alone.  One  who  has  made  wide  observation 
on  the  conduct  of  saloonkeepers  from  New  York  to 
Denver  recently  writes  of  them  that  their  business  has 


A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM.  135 

converted  them  into  a  type  of  man  different  from  the 
trades  people  among  whom  they  live.  Saloonkeepers 
become  "  hard,"  "  tough,"  "  sneering,"  and  "  unsym- 
pathetic;" the  so-called  good-fellowship  of  saloons,  it 
is  said,  is  all  on  the  surface  and  lasts  only  so  long  as 
there  is  prospect  of  a  money  return.1 

Dean  Swift  long  ago  indicated  the  Almighty's  low 
regard  for  mere  riches  by  pointing  out  the  kind  of 
people  on  whom  they  are  so  often  bestowed. 

Business  for  gain  only  dwarfs  men  and  unfits  them 
for  living.  With  the  passing  of  years  their  love  of 
gain  will  develop  into  avarice,  which  poisons  the  soul. 
Those  who  seek  only  the  gains  of  business  life  have 
sometimes  made  money  and  retired,  when  they  have 
become  of  all  men  the  most  miserable.  He  who  selfishly 
pursues  gains,  is  denied  true  pleasure  both  in  their 
pursuit  and,  if  he  is  successful  in  his  quest,  in  the  sub- 
sequent possession  of  the  thing  obtained. 

Not  only  can  there  be  cultivated  a  more  correct 
notion  as  to  the  ends  which  business  should  seek  to 
serve,  but  there  can  also  be  a  much  stronger  sense  of 
disapproval  shown  to  those  who  pander  to  lower 
motives.  Some  one  has  well  said  that  we  need  a 
standard  of  conduct  by  which  a  man  will  be  branded 
a  thief  whether  he  steals  a  dollar,  a  hundred  dollars 
or  a  million  dollars,  and  whether  he  steals  it  as  a  per- 
son or  by  the  agency  of  a  corporation.  • 

In  olden  times,  rogues,  fraudulent  bankrupts,  and 

1  "  What  I  Know  About  Saloons,"  The  Independent,  September  8, 
1908. 


136  A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM. 

the  like,  were  put  into  the  pillory  provided  for  rascals, 
where  often  they  were '  pelted  with  missiles.  This 
treatment  cannot  be  visited  upon  wrongdoers  in  our 
day,  but  they  can  in  effect  be  made  to  suffer  the  con- 
demnation of  public  opinion,  and  the  punishment  in- 
flicted by  public  opinion  may  prove  more  efficacious 
than  the  punishment  of  law.  In  a  recent  agitation  for 
municipal  reform  the  influence  that  was  of  much  effect 
was  the  attitude  of  the  children  in  the  schools  toward 
the  children  of  the  offenders,  and  certain  members  of 
the  city  government  felt,  when  their  children  came 
home  with  such  inquiries  as,  "  Is  father  a  bad  man?" 
"  Why  will  not  the  children  at  school  play  with  me 
any  more?"  "What  has  my  father  been  doing?"  the 
time  had  come  to  change  their  course  of  conduct. 

We  have  many  evidences  of  the  application  of  the 
old  moral  order  to  this  newer  economic  age.  An 
American  lately  refused  to  sell  his  name  to  an  insur- 
ance company  for  a  handsome  salary  and  no  duties, 
and  very  promptly  declared  that  he  could  not  consent 
to  receive  pay  for  services  which  he  did  not  render. 
One  well  known  recently  departed  this  life  with  the 
rewards  of  long  service  and  a  good  name,  and  he 
found  in  business  to  the  very  last  an  opportunity  for 
practicing  righteousness  and  a  means  of  enriching  the 
lives  of  his  fellowmen.  To  a  youth  entering  business 
he  gav£  this  high  sentiment,  which  those  who  knew 
him  would  testify  he  made  the  standard  of  his  own 
life: 


A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM.  137 

Let  thy  high  manhood  sacred  be, 

Then  lift  thy  calling  up  to  thee. 
Be  true  thyself  and  thou  shalt  find, 

An  answering  echo  in  thy  kind. 
Keep  thou  thy  faith  with  men,  and  see 

How  men  will  keep  their  faith  with  thee. l 

The  United  States  needs  much  emphasis  of  the  old 
fashioned  Ten  Commandment  morality  and  an  appli- 
cation of  this  to  every-day  affairs.  As  .suggested  by 
Governor  (now  Justice)  Hughes,  we  are  too  prone  to 
think  that  it  is  good  Americanism  to  be  "  slick  " ;  that 
business  success  is  dependent  on  deception;  and  that 
political  preferment  follows  manipulation  and  in- 
trigues. Hughes,  whose-career  in  a  remarkable  way  is 
characterized  by  uncompromising  honesty,  makes  the 
following  call  for  the  new-old  commercialism : 

Don't  follow  the  man  who  thinks  it  is  Amer- 
ican to  be  '  slick.'  There  may  be  many  illustra- 
tions that  will  occur  to  you  of  cases  of  successful 
sharpness,  but  they  are  so  exceptional  as  to  prove 
the  rule.  The  old  way,  the  steady  way,  is  the  right 
way.  Put  a  little  more  in  the  measure  than  you 
need  to,  give  a  good  basketful  of  fruit,  and  don't 
simply  have  a  little  display  on  top  of  superficial 
attention  and  industry.  Give  a  little  more  work 
than  you  are  asked  to  give.  That  is  the  history  of 
success  in  America.  That  is  a  lesson  to  boys,  full 
measure,  honorable  effort,  happiness  and  content- 
ment which  only  come  to  one  who  has  the  pride  of 
being  equal  to  his  job. 

1  Henry  S.  Kent. 


138  A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM, 

Moral  ideas  in  last  analysis  determine  the  strength 
and  perpetuity  of  the  social  order.  One  law  cannot  be 
meted  out  to  the  individual  and  another  to  the  firm 
and  corporation.  A  new  commercialism  should  regard 
business  as  a  legitimate  public  service,  not  an  act  of 
plunder.  As  a  public  service,  it  is  entitled  to  its  re- 
wards, but  it  is  not  exempt  from  the  operation  of  the 
Ten  Commandments.  A  new  commercialism  should 
give  us  business  men  who  put  emphasis  on  duty,  and 
who  magnify  the  honor  and  privilege  of  their  own 
calling. 

God  give  us  men.     A  time  like  this  demands 
Men  whom  the  lust  of  office  cannot  kill ; 
Men  whom  the  spoils  of  office  cannot  buy ; 
Men  who  possess  opinions  and  a  will ; 
Men  who  have  honor ;  men  who  will  not  lie. 

The  school,  the  pulpit,  the  press,  and  all  other  agen- 
cies that  aid  in  fashioning  public  opinion  should  dis- 
seminate the  doctrine  that  it  pays  to  be  honest.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  this  is  not  the  sole,  nor  the 
highest  motive  for  practicing  honesty ;  but  we  need  to 
revise  our  standard.  Honesty  pays  in  life's  asset  of 
satisfaction ;  it  pays  in  substantial  permanent  gain 
which  is  above  any  ephemeral  success  based  on  trick- 
ery. Mr.  Lecky,  in  his  History  of  European  Morals, 
gives  a  striking  confirmation  of  the  truth  here  urged 
in  a  statement  that  the  virtue  of  veracity  has  had  its 
highest  development  among  the  commercial  nations. 

Business  men  will  be  safer  in  their  own  lives,  and 
more  useful  as  members  of  society,  with  standards  of 


A  NEW  COMMERCIALISM.  139 

conduct  clearly  defined,  with  issues  drawn  and  conclu- 
sions reached.  No  doubt  most  of  the  too  common 
commercial  irregularity  began  accidentally,  or  impul- 
sively, and  it  is  followed  from  wrong  motives  and 
without  full  regard  for  the  consequences.  Somehow  a 
higher  standard  of  conduct  should  be  set  before  those 
now  in  commercial  life,  and  made  a  part  of  the  train- 
ing of  those  who  are  to  enter  business  as  a  life  calling. 
There  are  many  ways  in  which  these  ends  may  be 
reached. 


IX. 

SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

HIGH  SCHOOLS  supported  at  public  expense  came 
relatively  late  in  our  systems  of  public  education,  and 
even  yet  policies  for  their  support  and  management 
are  halting  and  uncertain.  There  is  a  widening  con- 
viction of  the  wisdom  of  direct  state  aid  to  high  schools 
and  at  least  one  serious  and  well-conceived  attempt  to 
extend  such  aid  from  the  federal  government.  New 
phases  of  secondary  education,  and  new  perils  to  public 
high  schools,  are  presented  by  the  recent  pronounced 
interest  in  technical  education.  The  time  is  opportune 
for  an  examination  of  recent  experience  with  high 
schools ;  and  also  to  indicate  some  apparent  features  of 
a  safe  policy  for  them  in  the  future. 

High  schools  are,  in  the  broadest  sense,  community 
institutions,  "  people's  colleges,"  or  finishing  schools 
for  a  large  proportion  of  those  who  have  any  higher 
education  at  all.  High  schools  need  a  breadth  of  view 
in  policy,  and  a  liberality  of  support,  that  cannot  be 
expected  from  the  local  communities.  In  order  that 
they  may  have  the  largest  usefulness,  the  state  should 
furnish  matured  plans  for  high  schools,  and  it  should 
show  also  how  these  plans  can  be  carried  out.  One 
140 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  141 

very  obvious  way  the  state  can  aid  these  schools  is  by 
financial  support  extended  through  an  authoritative 
department  of  supervision. 

A  neglect  ol  high  schools  means  ultimate  weakening 
of  elementary  education,  a  certain  low  standard  in 
civic  affairs,  and  inevitably  the  poor  equipment  of  a 
people  for  the  economic  and  industrial  contests  of  the 
modern  competitive  system.  That  state  will  have  the 
largest  success  which  gives  its  people  the  fullest  de- 
velopment of  their  native  faculties,  and  the  highest 
skill.  States  which  have  enjoyed  marked  advantages 
from  their  geographical  position  and  native  riches  will 
find  that  these  conditions  alone  count  for  relatively  less 
and  less  as  advantages. 

If  a  place  in  the  field  of  material  activity  is  to  be 
acquired  or  maintained,  a  state  must  give  to  her  people 
a  constantly  increasing  educational  equipment.  To 
make  natural  riches  effective,  men  must  be  trained  to 
use  them.  From  every  consideration,  increased  and 
improved  facilities  for  high  school  education  seem  im- 
perative. 

We  should  not  accept  any  such  miserable  alternative 
as  that  between  elementary  schools  and  high  schools. 
Rather  let  us  accept  nothing  less  than  elementary 
schools  amply  provided  and  equipped,  together  with 
high  schools  broadly  conceived  and  liberally  sup- 
ported, free  and  within  easy  reach  of  every  home,  fur- 
nished not  as  a  dole,  not  apologetically  or  grudgingly, 
but  as  the  inherent  right  of  every  boy  or  girl  born 
into  an  American  commonwealth. 


142  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

High  schools  as  distinct  institutions,  and  supervision 
over  high  schools  as  a  distinct  educational  function, 
have  already  demonstrated  their  worth  as  an  aid  to 
elementary  schools.  In  New  Jersey  the  state  super- 
vision over  high  schools  has  required  that  eight  years 
of  approved  work  in  graded  schools  or  its  equivalent 
must  precede  high  school  education,  and  the  report  of 
the  State  Superintendent  of  Public  Education  is  that 
high  school  inspection  has  been  of  invaluable  service  to 
the  work  of  the  grades.  Similar  reports  from  Minne- 
sota, Wisconsin,  New  Y°rk  and  other  states  fully 
establish  that  a  more  efficient  high  school  education  is 
a  means  by  which  to  improve  elementary  education. 

American- states  need  some  form  of  propaganda  on 
high  school  education.  The  need  is  evident  of  taking 
to  the  people  a  message  on  the  purposes  of  high 
schools,  and  both  encouragement  and  instruction  in 
their  establishment  and  improvement.  The  schools  of 
a  given  state  should  be  rendered  more  uniform 
through  standardizing  and  grading.  High  schools  are 
widely  different  within  many  states  and  the  poorer  can 
be  raised  more  nearly  to  the  level  of  the  better.  Simi- 
larly, there  can  be  the  leveling-up  of  schools  in  differ- 
ent states  as  is  now  being  undertaken  between  New 
York  and  New  Jersey.  But  all  this  means  new  legis- 
lation, with  increased  state  support  and  closer  and 
more  intelligent  supervision. 

In  the  inspections  of  high  schools  in  recent  years  we 
note  four  distinct  forms  of  agency,  operating  at  differ- 
ent times  and  places,  and  in  different  ways.  These 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  143 

are :  ( I )  The  inspection  of  colleges  and  universities,, 
without  legislative  authority  or  the  distribution  of  any 
funds;  (2)  the  inspection  by  private  associations  of  in- 
stitutions usually  including  both  colleges  and  schools ; 
(3)  the  inspection  by  some  board  created  or  author- 
ized by  legislation;  and  (4)  the  inspection  by  state 
boards  of  education  or  departments  of  public  instruc- 
tion either  directly  or  acting  through  an  agent  or 
deputy. 

As  in  the  Middle- West  state-supported  education 
has  had  its  highest  development,  so  from  the  Middle- 
West  do  we  gain  the  most  useful  lessons  on  the  super- 
vision over  high  schools.  The  first  form  of  inspective 
agency  should  be  termed  institutional.  This  was  begun 
by  the  UniVersity  of  Michigan  in  1872  and  has  been 
practised  by  the  University  of  Wisconsin  for  nearly  or 
quite  twenty  years  and  by  the  University  of  Illinois 
for  a  dozen  years.  It  has  been  adopted  by  the  Uni- 
versities of  Iowa,  Nebraska,  California,  and  some  other 
institutions  also.  This  form  of  inspection  has  been 
used  chiefly  by  the  state  universities,  but  it  has  also 
been  resorted  to  by  certain  private  institutions,  the 
most  notable  example  of  which  is  the  University  of 
Chicago.  Private  institutions  have,  however,  usually 
been  content  to  say  that  they  will  receive  students 
from  any  school  which  is  approved  by  state  univer- 
sities. 

Institutional  inspection  as  just  described  is  entirely 
voluntary,  and  indeed  only  upon  request  on  the  part 
of  a  school.  The  purpose  of  such  inspection  is  to 


144  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

accredit  the  schools  for  sending  pupils  to  the  higher 
institutions  without  examinations.  At  first  the  in- 
spection was  by  a  committee  of  the  faculty.  The  early 
practice  in  most  institutions  was  to  have  a  school  ap- 
proved for  given  subjects  by  the  department  of  in- 
struction in  the  higher  institutions,  and  the  certificates 
were  for  single  subjects  rather  than  for  the  school  as  a 
whole.  The  late  United  States  Commissioner  of  Educa- 
tion, after  observation  of  this  form  of  inspection  at  the 
University  of  California,  well  says  that  there  is  a  de- 
cided gain  to  the  school  from  having  university 
specialists  regularly  visit  it.  There  was  also  an  early 
proposal  to  resort  to  a  form  of  examination  at  the 
University  of  Michigan,  but  this  proved  too  cumber- 
some and  was  given  up.  Committees  of  "the  faculty 
soon  found  that  the  duties  of  inspection  were  too  bur- 
densome and  they  employed  an  agent,  reserving  to 
themselves  the  right  to  pass  upon  his  recommenda- 
tions. Thus  the  tendency  of  inspection  by  institutions 
has  been  to  have  a  single  inspector,  and  to  have  the 
school  approved  or  rejected  as  a  whole. 

While  the  purpose  of  this  form  of  inspection  is  to 
make  the  schools  feeders  to  the  universities,  the  effects 
upon  the  schools  themselves  are  worthy  of  note.  The 
testimony  where  it  has  been  tried  is  that  the  standards 
of  the  schools  have  been  raised,  in  some  cases  a  year 
and  in  others  even  more.  Weak  schools  are  some- 
times carried  on  what  is  called  a  "  nursing  list,"  and 
are  encouraged  and  improved  in  the  hope  that  they 
may  come  up  to  the  standard.  The  inspectors  make 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  145 

addresses  on  educational  subjects  to  the  communities 
they  visit,  and  after  such  visits  they  report  to  the  prin- 
cipals, superintendents,  and  school  boards,  pointing 
out  deficiencies  in  the  schools  and  suggesting  ways  in 
which  the  deficiencies  can  be  remedied.1  Not  the  least 
of  the  services  from  such  inspectors  is  the  improvement 
of  the  teachers.  Usually  the  inspectors  are  connected 
with  the  departments  of  education  of  their  universities, 
and  not  infrequently  they  give  instruction  in  the  sum- 
mer schools  which  are  conducted  by  these  universities. 
Thus  there  is  a  direct  appeal  to  teachers  to  improve 
their  professional  equipment. 

It  should  be  pointed  out,  however,  that  the  poorer 
and  weaker  schools  which  most  need  supervision  are 
likely  to  be  entirely  ignored  by  this  system,  and  fur- 
ther, that  while,  as  President  Eliot  has  said,  "  an  occa- 
sional friendly  visit "  by  a  college  representative 
clearly  is  of  service  to  the  school,  "such  visits  may  be  so 
infrequent  and  so  indefinite  as  to  lead  to  no  important 
results."  While  recognizing  the  value  of  this  volun- 
tary institutional  inspection  of  high  schools,  we  are 
compelled  to  say  that  it  is  but  a  beginning  in  a  process 
and  not  the  highest  or  best  form  of  supervision  over 
high  schools. 

1  Prof.  A.  S.  Whitney,  who  has  been  actively  connected  with  the 
work  of  inspecting  and  accrediting  high  schools  at  the  University 
of  Michigan,  writes :  "  Volumes  might  be  written  giving  specific  ac- 
counts of  the  opinion  of  the  Inspector  on  the  local  high  school.  So 
much  so  that  our  correspondence  with  the  superintendents  seeking 
the  aid  of  the  high  school  inspector  in  influencing  his  board  of  edu- 
cation to  take  advanced  steps  along  educational  lines  i?  extensive." 


146  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

The  second  of  the  agencies  above  mentioned  for 
standardizing  and  improving  high  schools  is  volun- 
tary associations  either  of  higher  institutions  or  of 
higher  institutions  and  secondary  schools  jointly.  This 
form  of  inspection  is  the  application  of  the  cooperative 
principle  among  institutions,  and  is  extendjed  through- 
out a  region  or  a  section  rather  than  being  limited  to  a 
single  state.  The  two  most  notable  instances  of  this 
inspection  are  that  of  the  New  England  College  En- 
trance Certificate  Board  and  that  of  the  North  Central 
Association  of  Colleges  and  Secondary  Schools. 

The  New  England  Board  began  about  1885  to  Pr°- 
vide  uniform  examinations  for  admission  to  college  in 
the  cases  where  the  requirements  were  similar.  Out 
of  this  there  came  a  demand  for  uniform  certificates 
for  college  admission  and  from  the  latter  the  practice 
of  approving  the  schools  as  a  whole.  The  institutions 
that  received  students  on  certificate  finally  reached  an 
agreement  that  a  Central  Board  should  be  established 
and  that  certificates  would  be  recognized  only  from 
schools  that  this  Board  approved.  This  Board  has 
carried  forward  its  supervision  since  1904;  it  has 
worked  by  correspondence,  by  inspection  of  curricula, 
by  securing  of  careful  reports  from  the  schools  and  by 
occasional  visits  of  representatives  of  the  Board;  but 
most  largely  the  Board  acts  from  reports  of  the  col- 
leges on  the  standing  of  pupils  sent  from  schools  wish- 
ing to  be  accredited,  or  which  have  been  accredited. 
The  president  of  this  New  England  Board  said  that 
reports  show  that  only  one-third  as  many  schools  send- 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  147 

ing  students  on  certificate  are  unsatisfactory  now  as 
there  were  before  the  Board  began  its  supervision. 
He  is  very  clear  on  the  facts  presented  that  the  schools 
have  been  improved,  increased  value  given  to  the  cer- 
tificates, and  a  closer  articulation  established  between 
schools  and  colleges.1 

The  North  Central  Association  of  Schools  and  Col- 
leges was  organized  in  1895  to  secure  cooperation  and 
to  promote  harmonious  relations  between  the  types  of 
institutions  that  make  up  its  membership.  Growing 
out  of  this  purpose  a  Commission  on  Accredited 
Schools  was  provided  for  in  1901,  and  to  this  Com- 
mission was  assigned  the  duty  of  defining  and  describ- 
ing standards  for  college  admission,  formulating  a 
statement  of  approved  preparation  for  high  school 
teachers,  recommending  equipment  for  high  schools, 
and  finally  providing  for  a  Board  of  Inspectors  who 
shall  inquire  into  the  conditions  in  the  schools  and 
make  up  an  accredited  list.  These  inspectors  meet  in 
Chicago  two  or  three  days  before  the  meeting  of  the 
North  Central  Association.  At  this  meeting  they 
compare  their  observations  and  revise  the  list  of  ac- 
credited schools.  Their  report  is  made  to  the  Com- 
mission and  the  Commission  reports  to  the  Association. 
The  report  is  printed  for  circulation  and  it  is  distrib- 
uted on  or  before  April  first  annually. 

The  Commission  on  Accredited  Schools  has  defined 

1  Professor  John  K.  Lord,  of  Dartmouth,  before  the  Middle 
States  and  Maryland  Association  of  Colleges  and  Preparatory 
Schools,  1907. 


148  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

carefully  the  conditions  on  which  schools  will  be  ac- 
credited, and  it  has  rendered  service  in  suggesting 
laboratory  and  library  equipment,  plans  of  instruction, 
etc.  It  provides  that  no  high  school  will  be  approved 
that  does  not  have  at  least  five  teachers  exclusive  of  the 
superintendent;  it  fixes  the  maximum  of  pupils  per 
teacher  as  thirty,  and  requires  excellence  of  intellectual 
and  moral  "  tone  "  in  a  school  as  a  condition  of  its 
being  approved. 

The  Commission  of  the  North  Central  Association 
publishes  a  list  of  approved  schools  in  at  least  a  dozen 
states,  from  Ohio  to  Colorado.  The  activity  of  this 
Commission  marks  a  tendency  away  from  independent 
inspection  by  a  single  institution,  and  this  form  of 
supervision  clearly  seems  more  desirable  than  that  of 
higher  institutions  acting  on  their  own  responsibility, 
but  this  inspection  still  leaves  something  to  be  desired. 
The  Association  is  too  far  removed  from  the  schools 
and  with  too  little  opportunity  to  aid  them.  The  Com- 
mission recognizes  its  difficulties  and  seeks  to  mini- 
mize them,  by  providing  that  reports  shall  be  made 
through  an  inspector  appointed  by  a  state  university 
or  an  inspector  appointed  by  state  authority,  and  thus 
there  is  evidenced  the  need  of  other  agencies  to  operate 
in  connection  with  this  Association. 

The  third  form  of  agency  already  tried  is  the  in- 
spection by  some  legally  established  board  or  its  repre- 
sentatives. This  is  well  illustrated  in  Indiana  and 
Minnesota.  In  Indiana  the  inspection  is  by  a  board 
consisting  of  the  State  Superintendent  of  Public  In- 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  149 

struction,  the  President  of  the  State  University,  the 
President  of  the  State  Normal  School,  and  certain 
superintendents  and  principals  of  schools  in  various 
parts  of  the  State.  This  Board,  by  division  of  high 
schools  among  its  members,  inspects  the  schools  of  the 
State  and  prepares  an  accredited  list  giving  the  privi- 
lege of  certificate  for  college  admission. 

Taken  altogether,  Minnesota  has  made  marked  prog- 
ress in  improving  the  high  schools  of  the  State.  In 
Minnesota  there  is  a  State  High  School  Board  consist- 
ing of  five  members — the  Superintendent  of  Public  In- 
struction, the  President  of  the  State  University,  the 
President  of  the  Normal  School  Board,  and  two  other 
persons  appointed  by  the  Governor.  This  Board  elects 
a  State  Inspector  or  Superintendent  over  high  schools 
and  his  office  is  supported  by  special  appropriation. 
His  reports  on  high  schools  are  recognized  by  the 
University  of  Minnesota  and  other  institutions  in 
granting  the  certificate  privilege  for  college  admission. 
Thus  the  Inspector,  while  not  an  officer  of  the  Univer- 
sity, is  appointed  by  a  Board  on  which  the  University 
is  represented,  and  the  University  seems  entirely  satis- 
fied to  accept  students  on  his  report. 

To  give  further  stimulus  to  high  school  education  in 
Minnesota  there  is  awarded  from  the  state  treasury  a 
yearly  grant  not  to  exceed  $1,500  to  schools  that  are 
approved  by  the  inspector.  In  1907  there  was  an  ad- 
ditional grant  making  the  total  above  $2,000  for  each 
school.  In  1908  the  amount  awarded  was  $1,500,  but 
immediately  following  this  the  Minnesota  Legislature 


150  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

increased  the  aid  to  $1,750  for  all  accredited  schools, 
The  High  School  Inspector  for  Minnesota  says  that  the 
Board  of  which  he  is  the  agent  has  three  forms  of  aid 
operating  together — inspection,  financial  support,  and 
examinations.  The  inspector  is  in  a  purely  advisory 
capacity,  but  the  financial  aid  is  made  to  depend  on  the 
conditions  found  by  the  inspector.  The  examinations 
are  optional,  and  are  meant  to  be  merely  suggestive 
and  directive.  Both  the  Inspector  of  High  Schools 
and  the  State  Superintendent  of  Minnesota  say  that 
these  optional  examinations  have  been  of  marked  ser- 
vice in  improving  the  poorer  schools. 

A  State  Superintendent  of  Minnesota  thus  summar- 
ized the  results  of  state  supervision  and  direct  state 
aid :  "  The  high  and  graded  school  inspectors  have 
rendered  the  state  valuable  service  not  only  in  guard- 
ing the  distribution  of  the  aid,  but  in  creating  a 
stronger  school  sentiment,  making  helpful  suggestions 
to  superintendents  and  teachers  and  in  encouraging 
and  stimulating  school  officers.  Seeing  the  best  equip- 
ment, management  and  instruction,  these  officials  are 
in  a  position  to  offer  officers  and  teachers  the  benefit  of 
criticism,  timely,  restraining,  and  suggestive.  Vested 
with  state  authority,  they  often  give  progressive  super- 
intendents, teachers  and  school  officers  needed  moral 
support  in  communities  where  a  too  conservative 
opinion  prevails.  State  inspection  has  been  a  directing 
force  in  the  more  judicious  and  economical  expendi- 
ture of  public  funds  for  the  construction  of  school- 
houses,  in  the  employment  of  trained  and  competent 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  151 

superintendents  and  teachers,  in  the  efforts  toward  the 
unification  of  the  courses  of  study,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  a  more  permanent  policy  in  educational  move- 
ments, which,  if  left  unguided,  will  result  in  more  or 
less  misspent  energy. 

"  Under  our  system  each  high  school  and  graded 
school  of  Minnesota  has  been  left  free  to  work  out  its 
own  plans,  while,  at  the  same  time,  we  have  in  the 
entire  scheme  such  unity  and  harmony  and  definite 
standard  of  efficiency  as  would  not  have  been  possible 
without  this  unifying  and  directing  influence.  And 
are  not  the  teachers  and  officers  of  the  county  even 
more  in  need  of  criticism,  advice  and  moral  support  of 
able  inspectors  than  are  those  in  towns  and  cities,  with 
their  greater  wealth  and  culture,  and  their  greater 
opportunities  and  facilities?"  * 

One  obvious  service  to  the  high  schools  of  Minne- 
sota, and  to  any  school  that  comes  into  the  possession 
of  them,  is  that  rendered  by  annual  reports  of  George 
B.  Aiton  as  Inspector  of  High  Schools.  Every  phase 
of  the  building  problem — ventilation,  equipment,  lab- 
oratories, libraries,  text-books  and  teachers — these  and 
many  other  subjects  have  been  examined  and  sane  con- 
clusions reached.  That  communities  realize  so  little 
from  their  money  in  school  buildings  and  school  ser- 
vice is  due  largely  to  inexperience  or  ignorance. 
Those  having  to  do  with  local  schools  need  to  be  given 
direction  by  one  who  has  a  broader  outlook,  and  it  is 

1  Annual  Report,  1907,  pp.  9,  10. 


152  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

in  the  giving  of  this  direction  that  a  state  inspector  of 
high  schools  can  be  of  great  service.1 

The  most  recent  trend  in  the  outside  supervision 
over  high  schools  is  by  state  departments  of  educa- 
tion, or  superintendents  of  public  instruction,  usually 
through  deputies  or  agents.  At  least  eight  states  are 
now  carrying  forward  this  form  of  supervision,  and  in 
most  cases  it  is  attended  by  the  distribution  of  money 
from  the  state  treasuries. 

In  Massachusetts  each  town  is  required  to  provide 
free  high-school  education  for  each  child  who  wishes 
it.  Every  town  of  five  hundred  families  must  furnish 
a  high  school  with  a  four-year  course  and  keep  this 
school  open  for  at  least  forty  weeks  in  a  year.  A  town 
of  less  than  five  hundred  inhabitants  may  maintain  a 
school  of  its  own,  or  provide  for  the  tuition  of  its 
pupils  and  their  transportation  to  some  other  school. 
The  experiment  of  having  students  transported  to 
other  schools  at  public  expense  has  likely  been  given 
its  best  trial  in  Massachusetts,  but  with  results  that  do 
not  seem  conclusive  as  to  the  desirability  of  this  method 
of  fostering  high  school  education.  The  smaller  towns 
maintaining  an  approved  high  school  are  reimbursed 
by  the  state  to  the  amount  of  $500.  If  they  do  not 

1  The  influence  of  the  Minnesota  Plan  is  far-reaching.  Prof.  Whit- 
ney, of  the  University  of  Michigan,  writes :  "  A  bill  has  already  been 
prepared  for  introduction  into  our  legislature  to  correct  this  defect 
[i.  e.,  of  not  reaching  the  poorer  schools],  by  the  adoption  of  a  plan 
somewhat  similar  to  the  one  now  in  operation  in  Minnesota.  Should 
the  proposed  bill  be  passed  we  believe  the  system  will  be  very  much 
improved." 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  153 

maintain  a  school  they  are  reimbursed  for  the  tuition 
money  paid  out.  In  1910  there  were  paid  to  the  small 
towns  of  Massachusetts  under  these  two  heads  $65,- 
009.03. 

But  in  order  to  receive  state  aid  Massachusetts  high 
schools  must  be  approved  by  an  agent  of  the  State 
Board  who  is  in  the  field  exercising  the  functions  of 
an  inspector.  The  same  agent  approves  high  schools 
for  the  privilege  of  certificating  their  pupils  to  the 
state  normal  schools. 

New  York  has  long  had  close  supervision  over  high 
schools  through  the  Regents'  inspection  and  examina- 
tions. The  legislation  that  consolidated  the  Regent 
system  and  the  State  Department  of  Education  in  New 
York  in  no  particular  relinquished  control  over  high 
schools.  Indeed  the  tendency  was  in  the  other  direc- 
tion. The  number  of  inspectors  was  increased,  and 
state  aid  has  been  extended  munificently  in  New  York. 
In  1907  the  State  of  New  York  gave  to  her  high 
schools  in  direct  grants  approximately  $550,000.  This 
amount  has  been  materially  increased  in  later  years. 
Much  has  been  done  to  remove  the  mechanical  and  de- 
pressing effects  of  the  old  Regents'  system.  No  doubt, 
examinations  in  New  York,  as  in  Minnesota,  are  a 
stimulus  to  the  weaker  schools,  but  the  grave  danger 
is  that  they  will  become  a  fetich.  The  establishment 
in  1906  of  an  examination  board  through  which  there 
is  appointed  a  series  of  committees  to  prepare  question 
papers  is  a  decided  forward  step,  but  if  one  from  out- 
side the  State  might  venture  a  comment  on  the  New 


154  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

York  plan  of  supervision  it  would  be  that  it  seems  de- 
sirable to  escape  still  further  from  the  evils  of  the  old 
Regents'  system  by  bringing  about  greater  flexibility 
through  a  larger  recognition  of  the  optional  principle 
in  taking  examinations.1 

New  Jersey  has  recently  begun  a  close  state  super- 
vision over  her  high  schools.  A  special  appropriation 
was  secured  with  the  power  to  administer  it  left  to  the 
State  Board  of  Education.  A  High  School  Inspector 
has  been  appointed  and  is  at  work  under  the  direction 
of  the  State  Board.  In  this  State,  as  in  Pennsylvania 
and  Louisiana,  which  also  have  lately  inaugurated 
state  inspection  of  high  schools,  the  function  is  dis- 
charged by  exercise  of  general  powers  and  is  not  due 
to  special  legislation. 

In  New  Jersey  schools  apply  to  be  registered,  and 
after  they  are  visited  by  the  Inspector  they  are  re- 
ported to  the  State  Board  of  Education  for  such  action 
as  the  Board  may  care  to  take.  High  schools  of  a  re- 
quired standard  and  with  a  four-year  course  are 
termed  "  approved  " ;  high  schools  with  a  one-year, 
two-year  or  three-year  course,  and  meeting  a  fixed 
standard,  are  recognized  as  "  partial."  For  each 
teacher  employed  exclusively  in  an  approved  high 

1  The  Second  Commissioner  of  Education  in  New  York  writes 
(1911)  as  follows:  "  In  my  opinion  we  have  now  practically  escaped 
from  the  evils  of  the  examination  system  while  still  retaining  the 
benefits.  As  you  will  see,  the  whole  thing  is  optional.  No  student  is 
required  to  pass  Regents  examinations  in  order  to  graduate  from  a 
high  school  unless  local  school  authorities  wish  to  make  that  the  rule. 
The  option  with  the  local  authorities  is  unlimited." 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  155 

school  there  is  awarded  from  the  state  treasury  four 
hundred  dollars,  and  for  each  teacher  giving  full  time 
to  instruction  in  a  partial  high  school  with  a  three-year 
course  there  is  similarly  allowed  three  hundred  dollars. 
In  1911  there  were  in  New  Jersey  1 14  approved  four- 
year  high  schools  and  50  partial  high  schools. 

The  Inspector  of  High  Schools  in  New  Jersey  makes 
it  a  rule  to  meet  with  boards  of  education  and  teachers 
in  regular  and  special  sessions  and  to  advise  with  them 
and  make  suggestions  on  various  aspects  of  high  school 
work.  Not  the  least  of  the  services  of  the  Inspector  is 
his  supervision  over  the  preparation  of  plans  of  study 
and  outlines  for  particular  subjects.  In  these  activi- 
ties the  Inspector  cooperates  with  the  high  school 
teachers  of  the  State  in  a  voluntary  and  non-official 
capacity. 

With  regard  to  the  nondescript  character  of  her 
high  schools  there  was  in  the  state  of  Missouri  a  few 
years  ago  a  condition  not  unlike  that  in  many  other 
states,  and  to  bring  some  sort  of  order  into  the  high 
school  system  the  State  Superintendent  was  given 
authority  to  grade  all  public  high  schools,  designating 
them  as  of  the  first,  second,  and  third  class.  This 
authority  was  extended  with  the  proviso  that  no 
school  was  to  be  in  the  first  class  that  did  not  employ 
the  full  time  of  three  teachers  in  high  school  work  and 
give  what  was  termed  "  standard  "  instruction  during 
nine  months  of  the  year  for  four  years,  in  English, 
mathematics,  science  and  history.  Schools  of  the  sec- 
ond class  were  to  be  similarly  conducted  for  three 


156  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

years  with  the  full  time  of  two  approved  teachers,  and 
were  to  give  instructions  in  accordance  with  the  condi- 
tions fixed  for  schools  of  the  first  class.  Schools  of  the 
third  class  were  required  to  give  two  years  of  satisfac- 
tory instruction  in  the  subjects  above  named  for  at 
least  eight  months  of  the  year  and  to  require  the  full 
time  of  one  approved  teacher  in  high  school  work. 

The  foregoing  provisions  were  to  be  carried  out  by 
the  State  Superintendent  of  Education  in  Missouri  who 
might  exercise  the  function  of  inspection  himself  or 
delegate  it  to  a  deputy.  The  law  requires  that  the 
State  Superintendent  publish  from  time  to  time  lists 
of  classified  schools.  To  give  further  effect  to  inspec- 
tion in  Missouri,  the  Superintendent  is  given  full 
authority  to  drop  a  school  in  its  classification  if  the 
required  standard  and  quality  of  work  are  not  main- 
tained. 

The  State  Superintendent  of  Missouri  reported 
early  in  1908  that  he  had  not  been  able  satisfactorily 
to  carry  out  the  law  of  1903  because  of  lack  of  assist- 
ants, but  further  that  the  Legislature  of  1907  had 
made  a  sufficient  appropriation  to  employ  two  deputies 
for  school  supervision,  one  for  high  schools  and  one 
for  rural  schools,  and  that  these  were  to  be  secured  at 
once  and  put  into  the  field  as  inspectors.  But  even  as 
administered  the  state  law  in  Missouri  had  had  a  help- 
ful influence.  The  State  Superintendent  reported  that 
the  number  graduating  from  high  schools  had  doubled 
in  four  years  and  the  number  enrolled  had  trebled  in 
ten  years.  It  was  the  expressed  intention  of  the 


SUPERVISION  OF  III  Gil  SCHOOLS.  157 

educational  authorities  in  Missouri  to  give  full  effect 
to  the  act  of  1903  in  furnishing  an  efficient  system  of 
high  schools  for  the  state;  but  in  Missouri  there  is  a 
clear  recognition  of  the  weakness  of  any  plan  that  does 
not  include  direct  state  aid  to  the  high  schools  from 
the  state,  and  an  agitation  looking  to  such  aid  has  been 
carried  on  for  several  years.  A  bill  for  extending 
direct  state  aid  was  before  the  Legislature  in  1911,  and 
seemed  reasonably  certain  of  being  enacted  into  a  law. 
In  Wisconsin  the  State  Superintendent  chooses  an 
Inspector  of  High  Schools,  and  the  Inspector  works 
under  the  direction  of  the  State  Superintendent.  The 
State  Department  of  Education  prepares  suggestive 
courses  of  study  and  approves  all  such  courses  pre- 
pared by  others.  The  qualifications  of  teachers  are 
determined  by  this  department.  In  Wisconsin,  local 
communities  which  support  a  high  school  in  accord- 
ance with  the  state  requirements  are  given  aid  by  the 
state  as  follows:  Schools  expending  above  $1,000  a 
year  for  instruction  receive  an  amount  not  exceeding 
$500,  and  the  schools  expending  less  than  $1,000  for 
instruction  receive  from  the  state  pro  rata  one-half  of 
the  amount  expended.  In  cases  where  town  high 
schools  or  union  high  schools  are  maintained,  schools 
having  two  teachers  may  receive  one-half  the  sum  paid 
for  instruction  but  not  to  exceed  $900  annually;  so 
with  three  teachers,  but  not  to  exceed  $1,200;  and 
correspondingly  with  four  or  more  teachers  one-half 
of  the  sum  expended  for  instruction  purposes,  but  not 
to  exceed  $1,500. 


158  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

Reports  on  inspection  of  high  schools  in  Wisconsin 
are  made  to  the  State  Superintendent  of  Public  In- 
struction and  to  the  University,  but  the  University 
sends  out  its  own  inspectors  to  make  up  a  list  of  accred- 
ited schools.  There  has  been  some  slight  friction  in 
Wisconsin  between  the  inspectors  of  the  State  Depart- 
ment and  the  University,  and  a  growing  demand  on 
the  part  of  those  who  would  expand  and  perfect  the 
state  inspection  that  the  University  should  take  on 
trial  at  least  all  the  graduates  of  accredited  four-year 
state-supported  high  schools,  and  later  drop  those  stu- 
dents who  could  not  meet  the  requirements  of  advanced 
work.  This  is  the  present  practice  when  pupils  of 
accredited  schools  do  not  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
University.  The  suggestion  here  made  has  greater 
validity  when  one  remembers  that  the  Middle-West 
universities  are  a  part  of  the  public  education  systems 
of  their  states. 

The  duties  of  a  state  inspector  of  high  schools,  if 
well  performed,  might  relieve  the  higher  institutions 
of  the  necessity  of  sending  out  their  inspectors;  but 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  higher  institutions  one  can 
see  that  they  may  properly  wish  some  control  over 
these  schools  which  send  students  to  them. 

Pennsylvania  is  one  of  the  latest  states  to  take  a  dis- 
tinctively forward  step  in  supervising  her  high  schools. 
By  the  legislation  of  1895  provision  was  made  for  a 
gradation  of  the  high  schools  into  first  class,  second 
class,  and  third  class,  and  providing  a  standard  cur- 
riculum and  general  requirements  for  the  schools  of 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  159 

each  grade.  At  first  a  slender  state  appropriation  of 
$25,000  a  year  was  extended  to  township  high  schools. 
The  plan  of  distribution  has  been  to  allow  $400  to  a 
school  of  the  third  grade,  $600  to  one  of  the  second 
and  $800  to  one  of  the  first;  and  in  the  event  that 
there  was  not  an  amount  sufficient  to  allow  these  sums, 
to  distribute  the  sum  available  among  the  schools  pro- 
rata.  This  appropriation  was  found  to  work  well,  and 
it  was  gradually  increased  until,  in  1907,  $275,000 
was  set  aside  for  the  township  schools  for  two  years 
and  a  like  amount  for  borough  schools.  This  appro- 
priation thus  provided  for  1908  and  1909  $275,000 
annually  to  the  high  schools  of  townships  and  bor- 
oughs. The  legislation  of  1909  continued  for  the  next 
two  years  the  amounts  just  mentioned,  and  coupled 
with  the  appropriation  an  act  for  the  better  grading 
of  high  schools. 

With  the  distribution  of  this  increased  appropria- 
tion in  Pennsylvania  there  was  the  necessity  for  a 
closer  supervision  over  high  schools,  and  the  Legisla- 
ture of  1907  also  passed  an  act  appropriating  money 
for  two  high-school  inspectors.  These  inspectors  were 
appointed  as  deputies  in  the  Department  of  Public  In- 
struction, and  although  they  have  been  in  service  but  a 
few  years  they  have  been  welcomed  by  the  best  school 
interests  of  the  State.  One  of  the  Pennsylvania  in- 
spectors writing  from  the  field  said :  "  Many  of  the 
schools  already  receiving  appropriation  do  not  have 
teachers  that  fully  satisfy  the  requirements  of  the  law 
of  1895,  and  the  equipment  is  often  very  meagre.  We 


160  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

will  doubtless  have  to  publish  a  circular  that  will  sug- 
gest some  suitable  lists  of  apparatus,  also  a  somewhat 
detailed  course  in  English,  and  further  define  what 
constitutes  a  year's  work  in  several  of  the  other  sub- 
jects in  the  suggested  course." 

The  other  Pennsylvania  inspector,  after  some  months 
in  the  field,  wrote  his  impressions :  Recitations  are  too 
short;  instruction  lacks  in  thoroughness  and  definite- 
ness;  there  art  unbalanced  courses  of  study,  with  the 
need  of  a  syllabus  to  state  the  minimum  requirement  in 
each  subject;  and  a  need  for  a  more  definite  standard 
of  admission  to  high  schools.  Immediately  following 
these  statements  the  Pennsylvania  inspectors  issued  a 
Manual  which  cannot  fail  to  be  of  great  value. 

Certain  conclusions  are  pointed  by  the  foregoing 
pages.  Direct  financial  aid  to  high  schools  is  much 
to  be  desired,  and  it  is  the  most  effective  means  of 
extending  the  influence  of  state  supervision.  Under 
competent  direction  a  grant  from  the  state  treasury 
may  be  made  to  secure  increased  local  appropriation. 

The  operation  of  federal  appropriations  to  agricul- 
tural and  mechanical  colleges  in  the  ten  years  from  1896 
to  1906  is  significant.  The  moderate  grants  from  the 
general  government  have  led  to  increases  in  a  much 
greater  ratio  by  the  states.  In  1896  these  institutions 
the  country  over  received  from  the  federal  treasury 
twenty-nine  per  cent  of  their  funds;  in  1906  they  re- 
ceived but  fifteen  and  four-tenths  per  cent.  In  1896 
twenty-five  of  the  agricultural  and  mechanical  colleges 
received  more  than  one-half  of  their  support  from  the 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  161 

general  government;  in  1906  only  fifteen  so  received 
a  corresponding  amount. 

The  grant  of  more  than  half  a  million  from  the  state 
treasury  in  New  York  in  1907  was  accompanied  by  the 
expenditure  for  secondary  schools  of  above  eight 
millions  in  the  state  at  large.  Many  communities  are 
tod  small  or  too  poor  to  tax  themselves  sufficiently  for 
the  support  of  satisfactory  high  schools,  and  yet  these 
communities  should  have  high  schools.  It  is  manifestly 
the  duty  of  the  wealthier  communities  to  aid  the 
poorer  for  the  welfare  of  the  state. 

And  there  is  another  phase  of  this  question.  Human 
nature  is  such  that  many  communities  which  would 
not  levy  taxes  directly  for  a  high  school  will  pay 
money  into  the  treasury  of  the  state  and  draw  it 
back  as  a  bonus.  Particularly  is  a  grant  from  the 
state  treasury  defensible  when  it  is  made  to  depend  on 
the  contribution  by  the  local  community  of  an  amount 
equal  at  least  to  the  amount  of  the  state  grant.  Thus 
local  interest  is  retained,  and  the  community  is  saved 
from  parsimony.  Aid  from  the  state  should  be  as  a 
stimulus,  and  not  as  a  means  of  pauperizing. 

The  power  to  withhold  state  aid  can  be  made  a  most 
effective  method  of  acccomplishing  reforms  in  the 
schools.  This  is  illustrated  in  every  state  where  such 
aid  has  been  tried.  Inspectors  of  high  schools  in 
states  where  grants  are  extended  say  that  they  would 
be  impotent  to  effect  results  without  it.  Inspectors 
where  such  aid  is  not  granted  clearly  recognize  its 
desirability. 


162  SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

A  standardizing  of  the  high  schools  through  com- 
petent state  supervision  will  go  far  towards  settling 
once  and  for  all  the  threadbare  question  of  college 
admission.  Germany  has  for  us  a  significant  lesson 
under  this  head.  There,  a  leaving  certificate  is  an 
ample  guarantee  of  the  fitness  of  the  one  possessing  it 
to  continue  his  studies  at  higher  institutions,  but  Ger- 
many has  liberal  government  aid  and  close  supervision, 
the  latter  extended  both  to  public  and  private  schools. 
If  schools  with  us  were  what  their  names  signify, 
higher  institutions  could  take  their  graduates  without 
further  question.  State  inspection  should  have  the 
power  to  make  a  school  and  the  name  it  uses  corres- 
pond. 

An  inspector  of  high  schools  should  not  be  simply 
an  amiable  gentleman,  who  goes  about  "  patting  people 
on  their  backs  ",  fearful  lest  he  "  make  a  ripple  or  leave 
a  wake  ".  He  should  be  able  to  say  and  do  even  un- 
pleasant things  in  kindness  and  helpfulness.  The 
dignity  of  his  office  makes  it  possible  for  the  high 
school  inspector  to  strengthen  and  elevate  the  educa- 
tional sentiment  of  the  communities  to  which  he  goes. 
He  can  stimulate  and  direct  the  less  competent  teach- 
ers, principals  and  superintendents,  and  can  back  up 
and  render  more  efficient  the  better  teachers,  principals 
and  superintendents.  The  inspector  can  also  give 
valuable  aid  in  suggestions  for  the  construction  and 
equipment  of  buildings,  the  outlining  of  courses  of 
study,  and  the  preparation  of  plans  of  instruction,  the 
selection  of  text-books,  reference  libraries,  and  in 


SUPERVISION  OF  HIGH  SCHOOLS.  163 

many  other  ways.  In  brief,  whenever  tried,  state 
inspection  of  high  schools  has  returned  many  fold  its 
cost  in  economies  and  improved  conditions.  The 
movement  has  just  begun,  but  it  is  safe  to  predict  that 
an  enlargement  and  perfection  of  state  supervision 
over  high  schools  will  be  an  important  educational 
development  of  the  next  decade. 


X. 
OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

AMONG  our  Aryan  forefathers  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence were  owned  by  the  tribe,  and  they  were  given  to 
an  individual  only  so  long  as  he  could  render  service. 
If  one  were  no  longer  able  to  make  his  contribu- 
tion to  the  common  store  he  was  either  denied  food  and 
left  to  starve,  or  he  was  put  to  death,  to  save  a  worse 
fate.  With  certain  other  primitive  tribes  the  one  no 
longer  able  to  care  for  himself  was  brought  before  the 
council  and  adjudged  as  ready  for  death,  after  which 
he  is  said  to  have  cheerfully  submitted  to  execution  as 
a  part  of  the  law  of  life.  Later  in  their  history  the 
Romans  learned  the  worth  of  their  elders  in  council 
and  they  nurtured  and  protected  their  old  men,  but 
even  in  Rome  there  was  the  survival  of  an  earlier 
custom  of  sacrificing  the  aged  as  evidenced  in  the 
ceremony  of  the  argei  and  by  the  term  senes  depontani 
signifying  the  sacrifice  of  the  aged,  which  was  offered 
as  a  tribute  to  the  river  god.1  Certain  Northern  tribes 
are  reputed  still  to  expose  those  too  feeble  to  hunt  or 
labor  to  die  of  cold  and  starvation. 

1  Ihering,  Evolution  of  the  Aryan,  332,  333  and  356. 
164 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  165 

The  present  is  a  time  particularly  noted  in  its  demand 
for  young  men.  Formerly  those  past  middle  life  were 
better  equipped.  Didactic  instruction  and  experience 
were  assimilated  slower  than  at  present,  and  of  neces- 
sity one  was  on  in  years  before  he  matured.  But 
now  school  training  furnishes  more  adequate  prelimi- 
nary preparation  for  work  than  once  was  given ;  years 
of  apprenticeship  or  indifferent  performance  are  elim- 
inated, and  the  worker  early  becomes  a  master  where 
before  he  remained  a  novice.  Moreover,  present 
requirements  are  for  a  different  sort  of  man.  This 
is  the  era  of  the  telephone,  the  telegraph  and  quick 
transportation.  Alertness  of  mind  is  demanded  in 
every  field  of  activity ;  instantaneous  decisions  must  be 
made,  and  success  depends  upon  making  these  ,right. 
An  earlier  era  required  conservatism  of  action  for 
which  old  men  were  best  suited;  the  present  demands 
freedom  from  tradition  and  promptness  of  action  for 
which  the  spirit  of  young  men  is  best  suited. 

One  can  readily  satisfy  himself  of  the  prejudice 
against  old  men  by  observing  the  employing  depart- 
ment of  almost  any  large  concern,  or  better  yet  by 
getting  the  experience  of  one  above  forty  who  is  seek- 
ing employment.  It  is  believed  that  men  who  have 
turned  fifty  are  in  danger  of  beginning  to  look  back 
with  pride  on  what  they  have  accomplished,  while 
what  is  most  desired  is  men  who  will  look  forward 
with  hope  to  future  opportunity.  The  late  William 
H.  Baldwin,  Jr.,  who  was  noted  for  his  successful  deal- 
ing with  men  and  for  his  fair  treatment  of  those  under 


166  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

him,  declared  it  as  his  rule  to  mark  a  man  for  dismissal 
from  his  employ,  when  he  found  that  there  was  a 
change  from  a  forward  to  a  backward  look. 

Some  railroads  and  other  corporations  have  made 
a  rule  not  to  take  a  man  above  thirty-five  or  forty, — 
at  least  not  unless  a  director  or  some  one  high  in 
authority  approves.  Such  a  rule  may  seem  absurd, 
but  we  are  challenged  by  the  fact  that  it  has  been 
made,  or  while  not  made  it  is  followed  in  effect.  Men 
of  advancing  years  have  again  and  again  been  driven 
to  suicide  because  they  would  not  become  dependents, 
and  there  was  nothing  for  them  to  do. 

Those  above  forty  who  seek  employment  must  pos- 
sess unusual  talents,  or  their  talents  go  a-begging. 
"  Givp  us  young  men,"  is  heard  alike  in  the  demands 
of  the  pulpit,  the  bar,  the  professorial  chair,  and  the 
counting-house.  Recent  practices  are  so  pronounced 
in  the  demand  for  young  men  as  to  present  a  problem 
of  what  to  do  with  the  superannuated.  In  an  age 
when  the  spirit  of  benevolence  is  operating  with  in- 
creased effect  the  aged  can  neither  be  summarily 
dispatched,  nor  abandoned  to  die  of  want.  The  cus- 
tom of  primitive  people  of  putting  the  aged  to  death 
has  this  in  its  favor :  helpless  and  dependent  men  were 
not  allowed  to  languish  and  die  of  neglect.  The 
neglect  of  the  incapacitated  might  seem  more  necessary 
in  a  warlike  state  of  society,  when  fighting  and  migra- 
tion were  the  requirements  for  existence,  but  with  a 
settled  condition  of  life  and  the  accumulation  of  wealth 
society  is  better  able  to  care  for  the  infirm.  Under 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  167 

the  conditions  of  earlier  civilizations  the  rule  may  have 
been,  "  the  strong  shall  consume  the  weak,"  but  under 
present  conditions  the  rule  can  and  should  be,  "  the 
strong  shall  care  for  the  weak." 

The  fact  that  by  the  modern  high-pressure  produc- 
tion the  workers  are  early  incapacitated,  and  more 
largely  so  in  America  than  in  any  other  country,  lends 
special  significance  to  a  discussion  of  this  question.  A 
late  statement  of  the  English  Premier  goes  to  the  ef- 
fect that,  "  the  blood  of  the  workmen  is  part  of  the  cost 
of  the  product."  It  is  his  belief  that  the  product 
should  pay  for  the  care  of  those  who  have  produced  it. 
And  under  the  modern  economic  system  old  age  is  that 
period  of  life  between  the  cessation  of  useful  produc- 
tive work  and  death. 

Some  would  make  the  whole  question  a  simple  one 
by  saying  that  the  care  for  the  aged  is  not  a  matter  of 
any  concern  to  any  one  except  the  aged  themselves, 
that  the  responsibility  is  individual  and  that  each  one 
must  make  provision  for  his  own  retirement  or 
incapacity  or  suffer  the  consequences.  But  society  does 
not  abandon  its  members  to  their  individual  destruc- 
tion in  other  realms  of  its  activity ;  why  should  it 
neglect  them  here? 

The  argument  mentioned  in  the  preceding  para- 
graph presupposes  -that  the  workers  in  all  callings 
have  a  fair  wage,  adequate  to  care  for  them  during 
their  whole  lives.  An  adequate  wage  is,  then,  one 
sufficient  to  provide  for  daily  necessity  and  to  lay  by  a 
store  sufficient  to  meet  the  contingencies  of  accident. 


168  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

sickness  and  age.  Now  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  daily 
wage  is  in  many,  or  in  most  cases,  only  enough  to  pro- 
vide for  daily  necessities,  and  no  store  is  laid  by  for 
the  need  that  is  sure  to  come.  One  writer  character- 
izes industry  as  "drinking  the  wine  of  the  wage- 
earner's  life,"  and  leaving  the  "dregs  to  him  or  to 
society."  It  is  a  gloomy  scene  which  Bishop  Spaul- 
ding  depicts  of  the  multitude  of  old  men  and  women 
who,  having  worn  out  health  and  strength  in  toil 
which  barely  gave  them  food  and  raiment,  are  thrust 
aside  because  "  no  longer  fit  to  be  bought  and  sold." 

It  does  not  meet  the  issue  to  say  that  the  chil- 
dren of  the  aged  should  be  made  responsible.  Many 
have  no  children ;  some  children  will  not,  or  cannot, 
accept  the  extra  burden  of  their  parents'  old  age;  and 
granting  that  the  children  do 'accept  and  carry  the 
extra  load,  they  are  thereby  prevented  from  making 
adequate  provision  for  themselves,  and  thus  the  help- 
lessness of  the  aged  would  be  handed  on  and  increased 
from  generation  to  generation. 

The  largest  gain  from  a  system  of  old-age  insur- 
ance lies  in  the  consciousness  that  the  community  has 
done  justice  to  those  who  are  fairly  claimants  of  its 
favor.  The  German  Professor  Wagner  holds  that  the 
selfish  social  interests  should  not  blind  those  who  are 
to  deal  with  this  question,  so  that  the  merits  of  the  case 
may  not  be  considered  from  the  highest  grounds  of  gen- 
eral social  welfare.  Old-age  relief  should  be  regarded 

1  Education  and  the  Higher  Life,  18. 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  169 

as  a  payment  of  a  just  obligation  of  society  and  not 
as  a  dole.  State  aid  for  free  schools,  and  the  services 
of  the  government  for  social  well-being  are  justified 
from  considerations  of  public  good.  So  the  State's 
relief  for  the  incapacitated  and  the  helpless  is  a  means 
of  promoting  the  general  welfare  of  society. 

True,  some  have  seen  in  any  movement  for  old-age 
relief  the  most  objectionable  aspects  of  state  socialism. 
Says  William  H.  Lecky :  "  I  can  hardly  conceive  of 
anything  more  certain  to  discourage  thrift  and  sap  the 
robust  qualities  of  the  English  people  than  that  the 
belief  should  grow  up  among  the  whole  working  popu- 
lation that  they  should  look  forward  to  the  State  and 
not  to  their  own  exertions  to  support  them  in  their 
old  age." 

But  the  fears  of  the  extreme  individualists  are 
groundless.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  wise  governmental 
cooperation  with  individual  effort  can  be  a  means  of 
stimulating  and  directing  individual  effort.  It  is  too 
much  to  ask  the  individual,  under  present  conditions, 
to  make  full  provision  for  his  old  age,  but  he  can  and 
will  cooperate  with  the  State,  and  do  vastly  more  than 
he  could  do  alone,  and  the  State  can  act  with  him 
directing  and  supplementing  his  efforts.  The  aim 
should  be  to  prevent  pauperism  and  to  provide  de- 
cently for  the  helpless  period  in  the  lives  of  those  who 
have  done  society's  work.  Already  it  looks  as  though 
the  dream  of  yesterday  were  the  realization  of  to-day. 
Non-contributary  plans  of  old-age  relief  by  the  State 
in  some  countries,  cooperative  schemes  between  the 


170  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

government  and  the  beneficiaries  in  others,  and  benev- 
olent and  private  enterprises  in  still  others,  are  all 
different  ways  in  which  society  is  paying  the  obligation 
which  it  owes  to  the  aged. 

Germany  was  the  first  nation  to  deal  with  the  ques- 
tion of  old-age  relief  in  any  advanced  way.  Volun- 
tary societies  for  the  care  of  the  aged  had  long  ex- 
isted in  Germany,  but  the  earliest  law  looking  to  this 
end  was  enacted  in  1889,  and  this  was  supplemented 
in  1891,  and  reenacted  in  a  more  complete  form  in 
1899.  The  present  German  enactment  is  said  to  be  the 
direct  result  of  a  socialistic  agitation  dating  back  to 
1863.  Bismarck  sought  to  strengthen  the  government 
by  adopting  a  program  of  social  reform  in  the  interests 
of  the  working  classes.  First  a  sickness-insurance  law 
was  passed  in  1883;  this  was  extended  to  accident  in- 
surance in  1884,  and  was  extended  into  the  first  old- 
age  and  invalidity  act  in  1889.  The  present  German 
law  is  thus  made  to  extend  to  cases  of  accident  and 
invalidity  as  well  as  old  age. 

The  German  plan  will  be  considered  at  some  length 
because  of  what  are  believed  to  be  its  many  admirable 
features,  and  also  because  of  the  influence  it  has  had 
in  shaping  the  policies  of  other  countries.  In  the  Ger- 
man scheme  contributions  are  by  the  government,  the 
insured  and  the  employers.  The  German  government 
is  admirably  adapted  for  the  enforcement  of  insurance 
provisions,  and  the  arrangement  of  local  administra- 
tion has  worked  most  satisfactorily.  The  mutual  pro- 
visions of  the  arrangement  between  employers  and 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  171 

employed,  and  the  sense  of  independence  among  the 
workmen  themselves  are  results  worthy  of  note.  Not 
the  least  important  effect  of  the  German  plan  is  the 
moral  effect  upon  the  working  classes  and  upon  society 
in  general.  Class  antagonisms  are  said  to  have  been 
lessened  in  Germany  as  a  result  of  these  insurance 
provisions,  and  there  has  grown  instead  a  sense  of  one- 
ness of  all  classes,  or  social  solidarity.  No  doubt  the 
cooperative  features  of  the  German  laws  and  the 
mutual  advantages  resulting  from  their  administration 
have  contributed  to  the  results  mentioned. 

Certain  classes  are  required  to  be  insured  under  the 
German  old-age  law  whether  they  wish  to  do  so  or 
not.  These  classes  are  briefly,  first,  those  employed  as 
laborers,  journeymen,  assistants,  apprentices,  and  do- 
mestic servants  receiving  wages  or  salary ;  second, 
those  employed  as  foremen  and  technical  workers, 
clerks  and  business  apprentices,  employees  whose  ser- 
vice forms  their  chief  means  of  income  (such  as  teach- 
ers) and  all  persons  receiving  a  yearly  wage  or  salary 
of  $500.00  or  less;  and  third,  all  persons  employed  on 
German  ships  whose  yearly  salary  is  $500.00  or  less. 

In  addition  to  the  classes  above  mentioned  other 
classes  are  given  the  privilege  of  entering  into  the 
German  insurance  agreement  if  they  so  wish.  Volun- 
tary old-age  insurance  is  thus  permitted  to  superin- 
tendents, foremen,  business  assistants,  teachers,  and 
ship  captains  whose  yearly  salary  is  between  $500 
and  $750;  also  to  traders  and  manufacturers  who  do 
not  employ  more  than  two  workmen  subject  to  insur- 


172  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

ance;  also  to  all  persons  who  are  engaged  in  the  home 
industries  and  are  not  subject  to  the  insurance  obliga- 
tions, and  those  who  receive  only  board  and  lodging 
for  their  labor,  or  who  are  exempt  from  insurance  be- 
cause they  are  employed  only  temporarily. 

The  compulsory  feature  begins  with  the  sixteenth 
year  of  age,  and  an  old-age  pension  is  granted  at  the 
completion  of  the  seventieth  year  without  proof  of 
disability.  To  receive  an  old-age  pension  one  must 
have  paid  a  weekly  contribution  for  twelve  hundred 
weeks. 

The  cost  in  Germany  is  borne  by  the  State,  the  em- 
ployers and  the  employed.  The  Empire  contributes  to 
each  annuity  eleven  dollars  and  ninety  cents  per  year. 
The  government  also  maintains  the  Imperial  Insur- 
ance Department,  and  provides  for  the  payment  of  the 
annuities  through  the  postoffice.  The  German  old-age 
law  is  under  direction  of  the  Central  Imperial  Insur- 
ance Department,  which  has  thirty-one  local  insurance 
offices,  each  in  one  of  the  insurance  districts  into  which 
Germany  has  been  divided.  Acting  in  conjunction 
with  the  thirty-one  local  insurance  offices  are  special 
pension  offices  for  the  smaller  political  units.  Each 
local  office  has  in  connection  with  its  work  a  board  of 
arbitration,  consisting  of  a  president,  a  vice-president, 
and  two  representatives  each  of  the  employers  and  the 
employed.  Appeals  may  be  taken  from  these  boards 
to  the  Central  Imperial  Insurance  Department. 

A  German  employer  is  held  for  the  insuring  of  all 
his  employees,  and  he  is  authorized  to  deduct  the 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  173 

workman's  share  of  the  premiums  from  his  wage. 
The  method  of  payment  and  receipt  is  simple ;  the  em- 
ployer purchases  insurance  stamps  from  a  local  office, 
and  these  he  attaches  to  a  receipt  card  carried  by  the 
insured.  The  pension  is  made  up  of  two  parts,  the 
fixed  sum  of  eleven  dollars  and  ninety  cents  ($11.90) 
granted  to  all  classes  of  pensioners,  and  an  additional 
amount  made  up  by  contribution  of  equal  parts  by 
employers  and  employees.  The  supplementary  part  is 
determined  by  a  classification  into  groups  according  to 
the  rate  of  wages.  There  are  five  wage  classes  with 
weekly  premiums  and  total  annuities  as  follows  :  First, 
those  with  a  yearly  wage  of  less  than  $87.50,  weekly 
premium  3^2  cents,  annuity  $27.50;  second,  those  with 
a  yearly  wage  between  $87.50  and  $137.50,  weekly 
premium  5  cents,  annuity  $35.00;  third,  those  with  a 
yearly  wage  between  $137.50  and  $212.50,  weekly 
premium  6  cents,  annuity  $42.50;  fourth,  those  with  a 
yearly  wage  between  $212.50  and  $287.50,  weekly 
premium  7^2  cents,  annuity  $50.00;  and  fifth,  those 
with  a  yearly  wage  above  $287.50,  weekly  premium  9 
cents,  annuity  $57.50. 

With  a  population  of  sixty  millions,  Germany  re- 
ported a  total  insurance  of  fourteen  millions.  Thus  it 
would  appear  that  nearly  one-fourth  the  people  in 
Germany  are  insured  under  the  old-age  law.  At  the 
same  time  there  was  in  Germany  an  annuity  roll  of 
110,969,  which  is  probably  much  lower  than  may  be 
expected  after  the  system  has  been  in  operation  a  suffi- 
cient length  of  time  to  give  all  the  insured  the  benefits 


174  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

of  the  provisions.  For  the  year  1906  the  receipts  from 
all  sources  were  $53,810,000,  and  of  this  amount  the 
Imperial  Government  contributed1  $11,985,000,  and 
the  employers  and  the  employed  each  $20,912,500. 

France  has  a  plan  of  old-age  relief  similar  to  that 
found  in  Germany.  As  early  as  1850  the  French  gov- 
ernment established  a'  number  of  saving  banks  to  stim- 
ulate thrift  among  the  working  classes.  At  a  given 
age  and  after  the  payment  of  a  required  sum  these 
banks  paid  annuities  to  depositors.  But  a  new  act  for 
state  aid  to  the  aged  and  incapacitated  was  passed  in 
1905,  and  went  into  effect  in  1907.  Relief  is  extended 
to  those  above  seventy  years  of  age  who  are  incapaci- 
tated and  to  those  under  seventy  who  are  suffering 
from  an  incurable  disease.  The  aid  is  not  less  than 
twelve  dollars  nor  more  than  forty-eight  dollars  a 
year.  The  burden  for  this  relief  is  mainly  upon  the 
central  government  and  the  local  commune. 

Belgium,  Italy,  Denmark  and  other  nations  have 
various  forms  of  old-age  relief,  and  the  same  is  true 
of  New  Zealand,  Australia,  and  Canada.  New  Zea- 
land, with  her  tendency  toward  economic  legislation, 
has  enacted  several  laws,  the  one  of  1905  showing  the 
fullest  development  of  the  idea  that  the  state  should 
care  for  the  aged.  In  New  Zealand  the  beneficiaries 
are  not  required  to  make  any  contribution,  and  they 
can  retire  at  sixty-five,  with  a  maximum  pension  of 
$130  per  year.  The  New  Zealand  law  followed  some- 

1  Massachusetts  Commission  on  Old  Age  Pensions,  Preliminary  Re- 
port, 20-23. 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  175 

what  one  passed  in  Denmark  in  1891,  which  differed 
from  the  German  practice  in  that  the  insured  were  not 
required  to  make  contributions  to  the  fund  from  which 
they  received  aid. 

But  it  is  in  England  that  old-age  pensions  have  been 
most  discussed  of  late  years,  and  that  country  has 
adopted  policies  which  seem  most  far-reaching,  if  not 
revolutionary,  in  dealing  with  this  question.  For 
above  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  voluntary  associations 
termed  Friendly  Societies  (for  the  relief  of  those  in 
need)  have  existed  in  Great  Britain.  Those  societies, 
however,  lacked  stability  and  many  of  them  failed,  as 
has  been  true  of  numerous  beneficial  associations  in  the 
United  States.  Several  Parliamentary  commissions 
investigated  this  question  and  various  schemes  were 
proposed  in  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  most  definite  and  simple  being  that  by  General 
Charles  Booth.  General  Booth  proposed  that  all  per- 
sons who  had  reached  the  age  of  sixty-five  should  re- 
ceive from  the  public  treasury  5  shillings  weekly. 
Two  arguments  were  urged  in  support  of  this  pro- 
posal :  first,  as  it  was  to  be  given  to  everyone,  no  one 
would  feel  pauperized  in  receiving  it ;  and  second,  it 
was  so  small  a  sum  that  it  would  not  tend  to  discourage 
thrift. 

Various  modifications  of  General  Booth's  plan  were 
suggested,  and  all  plans  were  bitterly  opposed.  Some 
objected  to  the  principle  on  the  ground  that  such  a 
policy  tended  to  paternalism  and  socialism ;  others  ob- 
jected to  a  non-contributory  form  of  insurance,  hold- 


176  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

ing  that  if  such  were  once  adopted  a  cooperative 
scheme  could  not  be  resorted  to  later.  Two  claims 
were  made  for  non-contributory  old-age  insurance  in 
England.  These  were  the  abject  need  of  many  no 
longer  able  to  work,  and  second,  the  due  of  these  aged 
workers  on  the  ground  that  they  have  by  their  labor 
already  contributed  to  the  wealth  of  the  nation. 

Old-age  pensions  became  a  government  policy  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  in  1908  a 
law  was  enacted  which  went  into  effect  January  1st, 
1909.  By  this  act  an  annuity  of  $1.25  weekly  is  ex- 
tended under  the  following  conditions  :  The  applicant 
must  be  above  seventy  years  of  age;  he  or  she  must 
have  been  for  at  least  twenty  years  preceding  the  re- 
ceiving of  a  pension  a  British  subject  and  a  resident 
of  Great  Britain ;  and  the  applicant  must  not  have  an 
annual  income  in  excess  of  $157.50.  Minor  grounds 
of  disqualification  are  also  provided,  such  as  lunacy, 
alcoholism,  and  having  received  various  forms  of  poor 
relief. 

The  maximum  British  old-age  pension  is  $1.25  per 
week,  which  is  allowed  to  all  whose  yearly  income  is 
not  in  excess  of  $105.  As  the  income  increases  from 
$105  to  $157.50,  the  weekly  annuity  decreases  by  a 
sliding  scale  from  $1.25  to  $0.25.  When  the  income 
exceeds  $157.50  the  annuity  ceases.  Under  the  British 
system  both  men  and  women  are  eligible. 

The  British  system  is  administered  through  a  cen- 
tral pension  office,  and  local  committees  for  boroughs 
and  cities.  All  claims  for  pensions  are  presented 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  177 

through  the  postoffices,  and  the  pensions  are  paid  by 
means  of  the  same  agency.1 

The  British  old-age-pension  act  is  an  abandonment 
of  the  earlier  individualistic  principle  of  the  British 
government,  and' in  principle  it  has  been  approved  by 
both  of  the  dominant  parties  and  by  the  nation.  The 
extra  burdens  imposed  by  this  pension  act  forced  the 
government,  which  was  responsible  for  it,  to  the  adop- 
tion of  a  new  form  of  taxation,  which  has  affected  pro- 
foundly the  economic  system.  Sufficient  time  has  not 
elapsed  for  one  to  hazard  an  opinion  as  to  the  effect 
of  these  new  measures,  but  certain  it  is  that  the  nation 
has  departed  on  a  sea  of  new  experiences. 

Massachusetts  has  taken  the  earliest  steps  looking  to 
possible  old-age  pensions  in  the  United  States.  By  act  of 
1907,  the  Governor  was  authorized  to  appoint  a  Com- 
mission on  Old  Age  Pensions,  Annuities,  and  Insur- 
ance, which  commission  was  required  to  "  investigate 
and  consider  the  various  systems  of  old-age  insurance, 
or  old-age  pensions,  or  annuities,  proposed  or  in  opera- 
tion "  in  that  commonwealth  or  elsewhere,  and  to  re- 
port on  the  advisability  of  establishing  an  old-age  in- 
surance or  pension  system  for  Massachusetts.  A  Com- 
mission of  five  persons  was  appointed  in  1907,  and  in 
accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  act  the  Commission 
represented  both  employers  and  laborers.  This  Com- 
mission carried  on  investigations  during  1908,  and 
submitted  a  preliminary  report  in  January  of  1909. 

1  Barlow  &  Somme,  Old  Age  Pension  Act,  1908,  9-43. 


178  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

The  preliminary  report  was  chiefly  valuable  because  of 
two  appendices,  one  giving  a  summary  of  old-age  pen- 
sion systems  of  foreign  countries  and  the  other  a  sum- 
mary of  the  pension  systems  of  American  railroads 
and  industrial  corporations. 

The  Massachusetts  Commission  made  its  final  re- 
port in  1910,  and  its  recommendations,  as  were  fore- 
casted from  its  preliminary  report  and  the  press  ac- 
counts of  its  investigations,  were  against  the  State 
inaugurating  a  system  of  old-age  pensions.  Instead, 
the  Commission  urged  the  good  old  Anglo-Saxon  doc- 
trine of  teaching  independence  and  aiding  everyone  to 
care  for  himself.  To  this  end  the  recommendation  is 
for  compulsory  instruction  on  thrift  in  the  public 
schools.  Employers  and  employees  were  commended 
to  the  saving-bank-insurance  provisions  to  be  noted 
below,  and  corporations  were  urged  to  provide  insur- 
ance for  their  employees;  municipal  pension  systems 
were  approved;  from  considerations  of  both  economy 
and  efficiency.  The  Commission  pointed  out  that  a 
general  law  for  old-age  insurance  should  not  be  passed 
before  additional  measures  were  enacted  for  sickness 
and  accident  insurance. 

A  valuable  part  of  the  final  report  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Commission  is  that  which  sets  forth  the  various 
forms  of  old-age  pensions  now  in  force.  These  are  of 
six  types :  First,  universal  non-contributing  insurance, 
by  which  everyone  who  reaches  a  given  age  will  re- 
ceive a  pension.  Such  was  the  plan  proposed  by  Gen- 
eral Booth  in  England  and  by  Edward  Everett  Hale 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  179 

in  our  own  country;  second,  non-contributory,  for 
those  who  meet  certain  conditions,  as  at  present  in 
operation  in  Great  Britain  and  the  Australian  Colo- 
nies; third,  compulsory  contributory  insurance  with  a 
state  subsidy,  as  in  Germany;  fourth,  voluntary  con- 
tribution with  a  state  subsidy,  as  in  Belgium  and 
France;  fifth,  voluntary  insurance  under  state  regula- 
tion but  without  state  control,  as  illustrated  by  the 
Saving  Bank  Insurance  of  Massachusetts  ;  sixth,  volun- 
tary insurance  under  private  management. 

The  Massachusetts  report  is  especially  strong  against 
any  form  of  non-contributory  insurance,  as  is  evi- 
denced by  the  following  paragraph  quoted  from  The 
Survey  for  January  5th,  1910:  "A  non-contributory 
pension  system  is  simply  a  council  of  despair.  If  such 
a  scheme  be  defensible  or  excusable  in  this  country, 
then  the  whole  economic  and  social  system  is  a  failure. 
The  adoption  of  such  a  policy  would  be  a  confession 
of  its  breakdown.  To  contend  that  it  is  necessary  to 
take  this  course  is  to  assume  that  members  of  the 
working  class  either  cannot  earn  enough  or  cannot  save 
enough  to  take  care  of  themselves  in  their  old  age.  If 
that  be  true,  then  American  democracy  is  in  a  state  of 
decay." 

The  Massachusetts  Commission  recommended  the 
creation  of  a  permanent  commission,  which  should 
serve  without  remuneration  and  continue  the'  work  of 
the  Special  Commission,  and  report  from  time  to  time 
the  results  of  experiments  being  carried  on  in  various 
parts  of  the  world. 


180  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

By  act  of  1907  the  Massachusetts  savings  banks  were 
authorized  to  open  departments  for  life  and  annuity 
insurance.  Within  two  years  after  this  act  went  into 
operation  two  Massachusetts  savings  banks  wrote  over 
a  million  and  a  half  dollars  of  insurance.  An  agent  is 
kept  in  the  field  instructing  the  people  on  the  advan- 
tages of  this  form  of  insurance,  the  rate  of  insurance  is 
low,  and  the  banks  have  been  able  to  do  the  business 
at  a  profit.  It  is  the  belief  of  the  Massachusetts  Com- 
mission that  this  form  of  annuity  insurance  offers  a 
desirable  means  for  old-age  rejief.  It  has  been 
claimed  that  5  per  cent  of  the  wages  of  laborers  during 
the  working  period  of  their  lives  would  provide  an 
annuity  sufficient  to  care  for  them  during  their  old  age. 

To  make  this  sketch  in  any  sense  complete  it  will  be 
necessary  to  describe  forms  of  voluntary  insurance 
under  private  management.  Many  railroads  and  other 
large  employers  of  labor  have  inaugurated  old-age 
retirement  provisions,  making  these  wholly  or  in  part 
based  upon  the  contributions  of  the  beneficiaries. 
Even  in  cases  where  the  laborers  do  not  pay  back  a 
part  of  the  wages  paid  to  them,  the  operating  com- 
panies are  willing  to  acknowledge  that  the  funds  con- 
tributed by  them  are  in  the  nature  of  deferred  wages. 
And  these  contributions  by  the  companies  are  war- 
ranted in  the  returns  from  improved  service,  and  in  the 
interest  and  good  spirit  which  is  secured  from  the  em- 
ployees. Thus  old-age  pensions  are  given  by  well- 
managed  business  concerns,  not  as  a  charity,  not  from 
any  sentiment,  but  because  the  giving  of  them  pays  as 
a  business  proposition. 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  181 

Railroading  has  been  the  leading,  though  by  no 
means  the  only,  branch  of  business  to  maintain  a  sys- 
tem of  pensions  for  the  aged  employees.  The  rea- 
sons for  this  were  strikingly  illustrated  a  few  years 
ago  when  a  serious  accident  resulted  from  the  lack  of 
mental  alertness  of  an  engineer,  who  had  been  long  in 
service,  and  was  past  the  time  of  efficiency.  More 
than  a  score  of  the  railroads  maintain  pension  systems. 
The  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad  began  the  pension 
system  among  American  railroads  in  1884.  The  Penn- 
sylvania early  developed  pensions  on  an  extensive 
scale,  and  at  present  it  is  expending  annually  over 
$500,000  for  this  purpose  for  those  who  have  been 
employed  on  its  lines  east  of  Pittsburgh.  The  New 
York  Central,  the  Boston  and  Maine,  the  Grand 
Trunk,  and  other  great  systems  have  followed  in  the 
lead  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  and  the  Pennsylvania. 
The  usual  arrangement  in  all  these  plans  is  for  the 
employee  who  has  been  ten,  fifteen,  twenty,  or  thirty 
or  more  years  in  service  to  retire  on  a  percentage  of 
his  average  salary,  and  to  have  this  without  any  assess- 
ments or  contributions  on  the  part  of  the  future  pen- 
sioners. Railroad  men  report  two  results  from  the 
pension  provision.  The  character  of  the  service  is  im- 
proved through  the  retirement  of  old  and  incompetent 
employees;  and  second,  a  more  efficient  class  of  em- 
ployee is  called  to  the  service  and  kept  there. 

Other  transportation  companies,  such  as  steamboat 
and  municipal  traction  corporations  have  also  adopted 
a  similar  provision,  as  have  numerous  mining,  manu- 


182  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

factoring  and  merchandising  concerns.  From  present 
tendencies  it  would  seem  that  the  large  employer  of 
labor  who  did  not  make  provision  for  old-age  em- 
ployees would  soon  be  the  exception  to  a  general  prac- 
tice. And  naturally  the  concern  which  does  not  pro- 
vide for  the  full  life  of  its  employees  will  not  be  able 
to  get  and  keep  the  most  desirable  employees.  Thus 
tendencies  point  to  old-age  pensions  as  part  of  our 
economic  system. 

.  In  general,  old-age  pensions  to  employees  are  re- 
garded as  deferred  wages,  and  the  granting  of  them  is 
considered  as  a  good  business  policy,  but  in  some  cases 
such  action  has  been  made  more  of  a  philanthropy. 
The  gift  of  Andrew  Carnegie  of  four  million  dollars 
for  the  disabled  and  incapacitated  employees  of  his  old 
works  about  Pittsburgh  is  of  the  latter  sort.  This 
fund  has  later  had  added  to  it  eight  million  dollars  by 
the  United  States  Steel  Corporation. 

An  early  form  of  old-age  relief  was  practiced  by  the 
churches  in  caring  for  the  superannuated  ministers. 
It  is  a  well-recognized  fact  that  ministers  are  inade- 
quately compensated,  and  to  supplement  their  salaries 
the  churches  have  for  more  than  a  century  been  doing 
something  to  care  for  those  who  are  beyond  the  period 
of  active  service.  This  practice  has  grown  into  a  toler- 
ably well  recognized  branch  of  church  work  known  as 
ministerial  relief.  The  funds  for  such  relief  are  con- 
tributed and  the  relief  is  extended  and  received  not  as 
a  charity  but  as  a  return  in  part  for  the  service  which 
the  aged  minister  has  rendered  to  the  church.  One 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS.  183 

need  not  attempt  an  argument  for  the  justice  of  minis- 
terial relief.  Almost  the  only  comment  called  for  is 
the  limited  number  of  cases  of  such  relief,  and  the 
mere  pittance  of  which  the  relief  consists.  Many  min- 
isters have  earned  the  right  to  retire  on  a  competency 
who  are  still  wearing  out  their  lives  in  attempting  to 
do  a  work  which  is  beyond  their  failing  strength,  and 
at  retirement  men  of  refinement  and  education  should 
not  be  expected  to  live  on  the  usual  three  or  four  hun- 
dred dollars  which  is  the  common  allowance  in  minis- 
terial relief  as  at  present  administered. 

Up  to  this  time  pensions  by  the  federal  government 
have  been  restricted  to  soldiers  and  sailors,  and  a  few 
judges  who  have  been  retired.  Our  government  early 
felt  the  obligation  to  care  for  those  who  had  fought  in 
its  defence,  and  the  soldiers  of  the  Revolution  were 
pensioned,  as  have  been  those  of  every  war  since.  Our 
military  and  naval  pensions  have  been  liberal,  and  the 
present  practice  of  retiring  from  the  navy  and  army  at 
62  and  64  years  of  age,  and  on  three-fourths  pay,  is  a 
generous  provision. 

Numerous  bills  have  been  introduced  into  Congress 
in  recent  years  looking  to  ihe  establishment  of  a  civil 
pension  for  the  aged  employees  of  the  government. 
President  Taft  urged  civil  pensions  in  his  annual  mes- 
sage of  1909  on  grounds  of  efficiency  and  economy. 
No  administrative  agent  wishes  to  turn  aged  employees 
out  of  positions  which  afford  them  their  only  means  of 
livelihood,  and  the  result  is  many  incompetent  helpers 
in  the  various  branches  of  the  government  service. 


184  OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

The  United  States  is  one  of  the  very  few  nations  which 
have  not  a  civil  pension  for  the  retirement  of  aged 
employees,  and  the  company  which  she  keeps  in  the 
present  policy  is  not  particularly  to  her  credit,  for 
almost  the  only  other  nations  with  her  in  this  partic- 
ular are  Venezuela,  Colombia  and  Hayti.  The  senti- 
ment grows  for  a  civil  pension  in  the  United  States, 
and  a  few  years  will  likely  see  some  form  of  old-age 
retirement  as  a  part  of  our  federal  system. 

The  states  have  done  little  in  the  direction  of  old- 
age  pension  legislation.  Special  acts  for  policemen 
and  firemen  have  been  passed  in  various  states,  and 
other  forms  of  old-age  relief  are  permitted  under  state 
laws.  These  latter  have  been  mostly  the  result  of 
municipal  activities  which  have  been  authorized  by 
state  enactments. 

Private  initiative  and  government  action  tend  to 
make  provision  for  old  age.  Considerations  of  eco- 
nomic well-being  and  of  social  justice  alike  demand 
that  those  who  have  done  worthy  work  shall  be  cared 
for  during  their  whole  lives.  Old-age  pensions  in 
some  form  are  humanitarian ;  they  are  also  in  the 
direction  of  sound  business  policy.  Altogether  some 
form  of  cooperative  or  contributory  old-age  insurance 
seems  open  to  fewer  objections.  This  does  not  destroy 
the  sense  of  responsibility  of  the  insured,  and  it  also 
enables  the  insured  to  have  some  part  in  the  insurance 
administration,  either  directly  or  through  the  govern- 
ment. "The  world  has  progressed  far  since  the  in- 
capacitated were  abandoned  to  die.  Much  remains  to 
be  done  in  adequately  caring  for  the  aged. 


XI. 

RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS. 

THE  last  ten  or  a  dozen  years  have  seen  a  wide 
application  of  the  principle  of  old-age  relief  to  teach- 
ers of  all  grades  from  the  primary  school  to  the  uni- 
versity. This  was  opposed  in  some  quarters  with  the 
argument  that  adequate  salaries  should  be  paid  and 
individuals  left  to  care  for  themselves,  and  also  that 
such  a  policy  would  lead  to  socialism  by  opening  the 
way  for  all  other  classes  to  make  demands  that  they 
be  granted  the  same  privileges.  But  appropriation  of 
public  funds  for  the  establishment  and  the  continuance 
of  retirement  fund  plans  for  teachers  has  been  well 
justified  on  the  ground  that  the  nature  of  the  teach- 
er's service  is  such  that  he  has  earned  the  right  to 
some  provision  for  his  old  age  by  the  community  for 
which  he  has  labored.  Here  surely  is  the  place  for  an 
application  of  Premier  Asquith's  statement,  "  The 
blood  of  the  workman  is  part  of  the-  cost  of  the  prod- 
uct." JSTor  can  there  be  observed  the  threatened  ava- 
lanche of  socialism  which  was  held  to  be  impending  if 
once  was  recognized  tht  principle  of  community  old- 
age  relief  to  a  single  class. 

Everywhere  the  importance  of  the  teacher's  office  is 

185 


186  RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS. 

recognized,  and  that  this  importance  may  be  realized 
the  teacher  should  be  freed  from  solicitude  for  old  age. 
The  provision  for  a  retirement  fund  carries  with  it 
security  of  tenure,  and  these  two  cannot  fail  to  attract 
and  retain  a  better  grade  of  teacher  than  would  other- 
wise be  secured.  The  freedom  from  anxiety  which  a 
retirement  fund  gives  will  also  tend  to  the  improve- 
ment of  those  already  in  service  as  teachers.  Teachers 
should  avail  themselves  of  opportunities  for  self- 
improvement,  and  when  freed  from  the  necessity  of 
laying  by  all  possible  for  the  dreaded  time  of  dismissal 
they  can  invest  their  surplus  earnings  in  professional 
betterment,  and  thereby  increase  their  usefulness  and 
add  to  life's  satisfactions. 

European  countries  have  led  the  United  States  in  a 
recognition  of  the  dignity  of  the  teacher's  calling 
through  the  establishing  of  pensions.  In  this  country  the 
principle  was  first  recognized  in  our  higher  institutions, 
and  Harvard,  Columbia,  Yale,  Cornell,  and  other  uni- 
versities provided  that  men  who  had  served  them  for 
a  term  of  years,  usually  twenty  or  more,  and  who  had 
reached  sixty  or  sixty-five  years  of  age,  should  be 
retired  on  such  a  percentage  of  their  salaries  as  would 
afford  them  a  means  of  livelihood.  This  action  was 
taken,  in  part,  in 'recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  stu- 
dents of  the  universities,  whose  due  it  is  to  have  men 
as  teachers  who  are  at  their  best,  and  also  in  recog- 
nition of  the  rights  of  the  professors  themselves,  whose 
due  it  .is  to  be  relieved  of  the  arduous  labors  of  their 
positions  when  they  reach  a  time  of  declining  powers. 


RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS.  187 

Important  contributions  have  been  made  towards 
furnishing  retiring  allowances  to  teachers  in  higher 
institutions  by  the  gifts  of  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie.  In 
1905  Mr.  Carnegie  addressed  an  open  letter  to  twenty- 
five  gentlemen  whom  he  had  selected  to  act  as  trustees 
of  a  fund  he  proposed  to  give.  At  the  outset  he  voiced 
his  opinion  that  teaching  was  the  poorest  paid  of  the 
professions,  and  that  in  consequence  many  able  men 
hesitated  to  adopt  it  as  a  calling.  The  retirement  fund 
for  the  teachers  of  New  York  City  was  mentioned 
with  approval,  but  Mr.  Carnegie  drew  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  higher  institutions  generally  had  not  been 
able  to  extend  like  treatment  to  the  old  men  in  their 
service. 

The  first  gift  under  the  Carnegie  Foundation  was 
of  $10,000,000,  the  income  of  which  was  to  be  applied 
to  supplying  pensions  for  teachers  of  colleges,  univer- 
sities, and  technical  schools  in  the  United  States,  Can- 
ada, and  New  Foundland.  This  fund  was  three  years 
later  increased  by  a  gift  of  $5,000,000  additional. 
Sectarian  institutions  and  state-supported  institutions 
were  excluded  in  the  first  grant,  though  in  1908,  by 
means  of  a  supplementary  gift,  the  Foundation  was 
made  to  extend  to  state-supported  institutions..  This 
latter  action  resulted  from  a  somewhat  insistent  de- 
mand of  the  state  universities  that  they  be  included 
in  the  benefits  of  the  Foundation.  It  was  held  by 
those  administering  the  state  universities  that  unless 
they  could  participate  they  would  lose  their  more  de- 
sirable teachers  to  the  institutions  that  could  hold  out 


188  RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS. 

the  attractions  of  possible  retirement  under  this  Foun- 
dation. Happily,  the  founder  relieved  the  situation 
by  his  second  bequest.  In  addition  to  the  other  rules 
governing  institutions  which  are  admitted  to  the  bene- 
fits of  the  Foundation,  tax-supported  colleges,  univer- 
sities, and  technical  schools  are  required  to  present  the 
request  of  their  governing  boards,  approved  by  the 
governors  of  the  states  and  the  state  legislatures  of  the 
states  in  which  the  institutions  are  located. 

The  Board  early  decided  that  the  Foundation  should 
attempt  to  be  more  than  a  "distributing  agency  "  for 
pensions.  The  purposes,  as  stated  in  the  charter,  are 
"  to  do  and  perform  all  things  necessary  to  encourage, 
uphold,  and  dignify  the  profession  of  the  teacher  and 
the  cause  of  higher  education."  The  Foundation  has 
amply  demonstrated  that  it  is  "  not  a  charity,  but  an 
educational  agency." 

Many  careful  observers  hold  that  the  prohibition 
against  sectarian  institutions  has  been  a  means  of  re- 
stricting religious  education.  Certain  it  is  that  several 
institutions,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  benefits  of  the  Foun- 
dation, have  passed  from  the  control  of  denominational 
boards,  and  have  given  up  their  former  direct  denom- 
inational affiliations,  though  this  by  no  means  necessi- 
tates that  they  cease  to  be  institutions  for  religious 
education. 

Though  the  Carnegie  Foundation  has  been  in  exist- 
ence but  a  few  years,  it  has  rendered  conspicuous  ser- 
vice to  the  calling  of  teaching.  The  aim  of  the  Foun- 
dation, as  expressed  in  its  full  corporate  title,  has  been 


RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS.  189 

realized  to  a  remarkable  degree,  and  to  the  specific 
work  of  affording  relief  to  the  aged  and  incapacitated 
professors,  and  to  the  widows  of  professors,  there  has 
been  added  a  helpful  influence  in  the  standardizing  of 
colleges,  universities,  professional  schools,  and  even  of 
preparatory  schools. 

In  a  country  such  as  ours  where  there  is  no  national 
supervision  of  education,  and  where  state  supervision 
is  quite  indefinite  and  dissimilar,  a  central  body  which 
shall  ascertain  facts  and  draw  comparisons  can  be  of 
great  service,  and  the  numerous  reports  and  bulletins 
of  the  Carnegie  Foundation  have  been  interesting  and 
helpful.  Some  have  spoken"  slightingly  of  the  Foun- 
dation and  its  work,  terming  it  an  "  educational  trust," 
a  "  pension  trust,"  etc.,  but  a  fair  judgment  on  the 
whole  work  of  the  Carnegie  trustees  warrants  the 
statement  that  they  have  administered  the  Foundation 
"  for  the  advancement  of  teaching,"  and  in  many  re- 
spects the  gift  of  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  for  pension- 
ing college  teachers  is  the  most  far-reaching  and 
beneficent  act  of  any  one  man  for  the  upbuilding  of  the 
teaching  profession. 

Particularly  has  the  Foundation  been  of  service  be- 
cause of  the  liberal  and  generous  spirit  of  the  ad- 
ministrators. Especially  meritorious  cases  have  been 
rendered  aid  by  grants  from  the  Board  quite  aside 
from  any  institutional  affiliations.  The  high  plane  on 
which  the  Foundation  was  placed  has  made  retirement 
by  it  a  badge  of  honorable  distinction,  not  an  evidence 
of  accepting  charity. 


190  RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS. 

Under  the  Carnegie  Foundation  no  retiring  allow- 
ance can  be  for  more  than  $4,000  per  year.  For  those 
who  receive  a  salary  of  $1,200  or  less  the  allowance 
is  fixed  at  $1,000.  The  annuities  are  thus  made  to 
range  from  $1,000  to  $4,000  per  year,  but  with  pro- 
vision that  a  retiring  allowance  shall  not  be  in  excess 
of  90  per  cent  of  the  salary  received  at  the  time  of 
retirement.  The  exact  amount  between  $1,000  and 
$4,000  is  determined  by  adding  to  the  minimum  allow- 
ance $50  additional  for  each  $100  by  which  the  retir- 
ing salary  is  in  excess  of  $1,200.  Those  professors  who 
are  eligible  to  grants  from  their  own  institutions  may 
draw  these  without  invalidating  their  allowance  from 
the  Carnegie  Foundation. 

The  conditions  of  retirement  during  the  first  three 
or  four  years  of  the  Foundation's  existence  were  un- 
usually liberal,  college  professors  having  claims  after 
twenty- five  years  of  service  irrespective  of  age  and 
disability.  Experience,  however,  led  to  the  adoption 
of  a  disability  clause  and  a  rule  of  eligibility,  as  fol- 
lows :  "Any  person  who  has  had  twenty-five  years  of 
service  as  a  professor  or  thirty  years'  service  as  pro- 
fessor and  instructor,  and  who  is  at  the  time  either  a 
professor  or  an  instructor  in  an  accepted  institution, 
shall,  in  the  case  of  disability  unfitting  him  for  work 
of  teacher,  approved  by  medical  examination,  be  en- 
titled to  a  retiring  allowance." 

The  terms  of  granting  annuities  for  disability  are 
less  generous  than  they  are  for  annuities  on  account 
of  age.  Any  person  in  an  accredited  institution  who 


RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS.  191 

has  seen  service  for  not  less  than  fifteen  years  as  a 
professor  or  for  not  less  than  twenty-five  years  as  an 
instructor,  and  who  has  reached  the  age  of  sixty-five 
years,  is  entitled  to  a  retiring  allowance  irrespective  of 
disability.  In  1910  there  was  on  the  accepted  list  of 
the  Carnegie  Foundation  a  total  of  seventy-one  insti- 
tutions. In  addition  to  pensions  in  these,  retiring 
allowances  have  been  awarded  to  those  in  seventy-one 
other  institutions.  One  hundred  and  fifty-five  such 
allowances  have  been  granted,  aggregating  an  annual 
payment  in  1909  of  $144,000.  Action  was  taken  in 
1910  looking  to  a  more  restricted  application  of  the 
policy  of  outside  allowances  in  the  future.  This 
action  was  based  on  the  more  accurate  information  of 
the  various  institutions  in  the  possession  of  the  Foun- 
dation and  the  increasing  demands  from  those  in  ac- 
cepted institutions.  It  was  therefore  voted  that  re- 
tiring allowances  should  not  be  allowed  to  those  out- 
side of  the  accepted  list,  except  to  especially  worthy 
cases  in  institutions  whose  standards  are  known  to  be 
such  that  within  a  short  time  they  will  be  ready  for 
admission  to  the  Foundation. 

In  r899,  Lewis  Elkin  left  to  the  administration  of 
the  Philadelphia  Board  of  Education  a  fund  now 
amounting  to  a  million  and  three-quarters  dollars,  the 
income  of  wh'ich  is  to  be  used  for  annuities  to  the 
needy,  aged  and  incapacitated  women  teachers  of  the 
city.  Mr.  Elkin  had  been  a  member  of  the  Philadel- 
phia Board  of  Education,  and  in  that  capacity  he  had 


192  RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS. 

observed  what  any  discerning  person  may  observe, 
that  there  are  many  teachers  in  service  who  are  drag- 
ging out  their  lives  because  they  have  not  the  means  on 
which  to  retire,  and  there  are  others  who,  when  re- . 
tired,  are  reduced  to  the  direst  want.  For  women  who 
had  served  in  the  schools  of  the  city  for  at  least  twenty- 
five  years  and  who  were  not  able  to  continue, 
and  who  were  in  need  of  the  annuity,  he  provided  an 
allowance  of  $400  annually.  This  bequest  preceded 
the  establishment  of  a  general  retirement  fund,  and 
since  the  establishment  of  the  latter  the  two  have  been 
administered  in  cooperative  relations.  The  Elkin  fund 
has  thus  become  in  effect  an  endowment  to  the  Teach- 
er's Retirement  Fund  of  Philadelphia. 

The  establishment  of  retirement  funds  for  teachers 
of  the  public  schools  was  begun  by  voluntary  associa- 
tions among  teachers,  providing  for  incapacity,  death 
benefits  and  old-age  annuity  insurance.  These  asso- 
ciations were  voluntary  and  naturally  were  not  able  to 
get  and  keep  any  large  proportion  of  teachers  as  mem- 
bers. Of  the  forty-eight  teachers'  retirement  funds  in 
existence  in  the  United  States  in  1909,  17  per  cent 
were  still  of  the  "  mutual  benefit  "  sort,  financed  en- 
tirely by  the  teachers  themselves.  To  such  a  volun- 
tary insurance  there  will  always  be  the  objection  which 
is  urged  against  fraternal  insurance  in  any  form;  the 
young  person  does  not  wish  to  come  into  an  association 
and  share  pro  rata  in  carrying  the  burdens  of  older 
members.  The  membership  and  income  thus  fail  to 
keep  pace  with  the  increasing  demands  of  an  earlier 


RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS.  193 

membership.  In  some  places  such  voluntary  associa- 
tions have  been  successful  in  securing  appropriations 
of  public  funds  to  carry  out  the  purposes  for  which 
they  were  established.  All  such  associations  rendered 
service  in  the  beginning  of  the  retirement  fund  plans, 
and  some  of  them  were  merged  into  one  of  the  forms 
of  teachers'  pensions  to  be  described  below. 

Legislation  for  teachers'  retirement  fund  plans  have 
been  along  two  lines,  either  the  establishment  of  a 
state  fund  for  all  the  teachers  of  a  given  state,  or  acts 
giving  authority  for  a  city  or  other  local  unit  to  organ- 
ize such  a  fund,  or  providing  the  details  of  such  an 
organization  in  the  acts  themselves.  Early  acts  mak- 
ing membership  of  teachers  already  in  service  compul- 
sory were  found  to  be  unconstitutional  because  of  their 
impairment  of  the  validity  of  contracts.  In  all  subse- 
quent legislation  provision  is  made  for  teachers  who 
are  in  service  to  join  if  they  wish,  but  in  joining  they 
accept  the  terms  of  the  retirement  plan  as  a  part  of 
their  contract.  In  addition,  these  later  acts  have  usu- 
ally required  the  acceptance  of  the  provisions  of  a 
teachers'  retirement  fund  as  a  condition  of  accepting 
appointment  as  a  teacher.  In  the  places  where  the 
retirement  fund  has  been  established  the  teachers 
already  engaged  have  accepted  its  terms  practically 
unanimously,  and  with  the  compulsory  requirement  for 
all  new  teachers  a  permanent  membership  is  assured. 

Retirement  fund  plans  are  generally  regarded  as 
cooperative  enterprises.  In  two-thirds  of  the  forty- 
eight  plans  reported  to  the  Bureau  of  Labor  in  1909, 


194  RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS. 

the  support  came  in  part  from  the  public  treasury  and 
in  part  from  the  contributions  of  the  teachers.  Teacher 
contributions  have  several  advantages.  First,  they 
put  the  fund  before  the  teachers  themselves  and  before 
the  public  in  a  better  light.  The  teachers  are  thus  re- 
garded as  working  with  the  government  to  accomplish 
a  given  desirable  result.  There  is  an  encouragement 
to  thrift  and  a  growth  in  self-respect  from  teachers 
doing  something  for  themselves.  More  than  this, 
through  teacher-contribution  there  may  be  introduced 
teacher-participation  in  the  management.  In  thirty- 
six  of  the  funds  above  mentioned  the  teachers  have  a 
part  in  the  administration.  In  several  of  the  largest 
funds  teachers  or  former  teachers  have  served  as  secre- 
taries and  chief  executive  officers.  The  advantages  are 
obvious  for  teachers  having  to  do  with  those  of  their 
own  calling  in  arranging  for  the  terms  and  conditions 
of  their  retirement. 

Six  of  the  forty-eight  funds  above  mentioned  are 
organized  on  a  state  basis.  The  states  having  retire- 
ment funds  for  all  their  teachers  are  Connecticut, 
Maryland,  Massachusetts,  New  Jersey,  Rhode  Island, 
and  Virginia.  Of  the  states  just  named  two  only,  viz., 
Maryland  and  Rhode  Island,  supply  all  the  revenue 
through  appropriations  from  the  public  treasury. 

New  Jersey  has  the  most  effective  state  pension 
arrangement  for  its  teachers.  This  is  a  result  of  a 
joint  administration  of  a  voluntary  teachers'  retire- 
ment fund  plan  established  in  1896  and  a  state  half- 
pay  district  pension  law  enacted  in  1903.  Under  the 


RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS.  195 

present  arrangement  in  New  Jersey  the  state  bears  the 
expense  of  administration  of  the  voluntary  organiza- 
tion. The  latter  organization  is  supported  by  the  reg- 
ular contributions  of  its  members,  income  on  invested 
funds,  donations  and  gifts.  Those  who  have  served 
ten  years  and  under  are  required  to  contribute  two  per 
cent  of  their  salary,  those  over  ten  years  and  under 
fifteen  years  two  and  one-half  per  cent,  those  fifteen 
and  over  three  per  cent,  but  no  one  is  required  to  con- 
tribute more  than  $50  in  a  given  year.  Those  who 
have  served  twenty  years  as  teachers  in  New  Jersey 
and  are  incapacitated,  and  have  paid  in  at  least  one  full 
annuity,  are  eligible  to  retirement  at  six-tenths  of  their 
salary,  but  with  the  provision  that  no  annual  annuity 
shall  be  for  less  than  $250  or  for  more  than  $650. 

The  half-pay  pension  law  of  New  Jersey  is  carried 
out  by  local  school  boards.  This  law  provides  that 
teachers  who  have  been  thirty-five  years  in  the  service 
in  the  state  and  twenty  years  in  the  given  district  may 
be,  at  the  discretion  of  the  school  board,  retired  on 
one-half  of  their  average  annual  salary  for  the  five 
years  preceding.  This  act  is  thus  made  to  operate  as 
a  part  of  the  salary  arrangement  of  a  given  board. 
Thus  a  local  board  may  allow  a  teacher  who  fulfils  the 
conditions  a  half  of  her  former  salary,  and  carry  her 
name  on  the  salary  roll,  allowing  her  to  be  free  from 
regular  duty.  In  certain  cases  these  teachers  are 
called  on  for  special  duties. 

It  should  be  noted  thaf  the  same  teacher  may  in 
New  Jersey  be  retired  under  the  voluntary  plan  and 


196  RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS. 

also  under  the  local  half-pay  pension  law,  and  some 
have  been  so  retired.  The  New  Jersey  laws  for  teach- 
ers' retirement  have  been  beset  by  many  obstacles, 
legal  and  otherwise,  but  they  have  passed  these  safely 
and  the  teachers  of  New  Jersey  have  the  most  generous 
and  rational  plan  for  retirement  in  operation  in  any 
state  in  America.  That  this  is  true  is  largely  due  to 
the  efforts  of  one  woman  in  the  city  of  Hoboken. 

The  most  common  form  of  pensions  for  teachers  of 
the  public  schools  is  the  provision  made  by  a  given  city 
for  those  who  work  in  its  schools,  regarding  these  as  mu- 
nicipal employees.  Precedent  for  this  arrangement  was 
found  in  the  policemen's  and  firemen's  pension  funds 
widely  established,  and  generally  approved.  In  most 
cases  the  teachers'  retirement  funds  are  maintained  as 
are  the  policemen's  and  firemen's  pensions,  i.  e.,  by  joint 
contributions  of  the  municipality  and  those  who  are  to 
be  the  beneficiaries.  Nearly  all  the  large  cities  of  the 
country,  and  many  smaller  cities  as  well,  now  have 
pension  provisions  operating  for  their  teachers.  Across 
the  country  we  find  Boston,  Providence,  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  Harrisburg,  Pittsburgh,  Cincinnati,  In- 
dianapolis, Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Omaha,  Salt  Lake  City, 
San  Francisco,  not  to  mention  such  cities  as  Washing- 
ton, D.  C,  Detroit,  Milwaukee,  St.  Paul,  Minneapolis, 
and  New  Orleans.  In  New  York  state  alone  the  list 
of  retirement  fund  cities  is  impressive,  including 
Greater  New  York,  Albany,  Buffalo,  Elmira,  Roches- 
ter, Schenectady,  Syracuse,  Troy,  and  Yonkers. 

In  most  of  the  cities  above  mentioned  there  is  a  per- 


RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS.  197 

centage  basis  of  contribution  by  the  teachers,  with  a 
fixed  maximum.  There  is  also  usually  provided  a 
graduated  annuity  based  on  salary  at  the  time  of  re- 
tirement, or  the  average  for  the  five  years  preceding 
this  time,  but  there  is  also  generally  a  fixed  minimum 
and  maximum  annuity.  Chicago,  Boston,  and  Detroit 
began  their  retirement  funds  with  a  uniform  contribu- 
tion from  all  teachers  who  joined,  and  provided  for  the 
same  annuities  to  all  who  retired.  But  the  contribu- 
tions were  made  so  low,  to  make  it  possible  for  the 
low-salaried  teachers  to  pay  without  hardship,  that 
there  was  not  sufficient  revenue  to  provide  suitable 
annuities  for  retirement.  The  best  experience  points 
to  contributions  graded  according  to  salaries,  at  least 
within  certain  limits,  and  also  based  upon  years  of  ex- 
perience. 

Two  retirement  fund  plans  for  cities  are  representa- 
tive of  the  ways  in  which  such  funds  may  be  estab- 
lished. The  first  is  that  for  Greater  New  York,  where 
the  law  from  the  state  legislature  provides  the  terms 
and  conditions  of  the  fund ;  the  second  is  that  for  Phila- 
delphia, where  the  provisions  for  the  fund  have  been 
worked  out  and  adopted  by  the  city,  an  act  of  authori- 
zation only  having  been  passed  by  the  state  legislature. 

The  New  York  retirement  fund  as  now  existing  is 
compulsory  upon  all  teachers  appointed  to  the  public 
schools  of  Greater  New  York.  The  present  fund  was 
formed  in  1902  by  the  consolidation  of  voluntary 
organizations  which  has  been  established  in  Manhattan 
in  1894,  and  in  Brooklyn  in  1895.  The  Board  of  Re- 


198  RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS. 

tircmcnt  in  New  York  has  seven  members,  as  follows: 
the  President  of  the  Board  of  Education,  the  Chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  High  Schools,  the  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Elementary  Schools,  the  Superin- 
tendent of  Schools,  and  three  other  persons  elected  by 
the  members  from  principals,  assistants  to  principals, 
and  teachers  of  the  public  schools.  After  thirty  years 
of  service,  fifteen  of  which  shall  have  been  in  the  public 
schools  of  New  York,  any  teacher  may  retire  at  his 
or  her  own  request,  providing  he  or  she  is  recom- 
mended by  the  Board  of  Retirement  and  the  recom- 
mendation is  approved  by  a .  two-thirds  vote  of  the 
Board  of  Education. 

Under  the  New  York  law  the  fund  is  maintained  by 
an  appropriation  of  five  per  cent  of  all  the  excise 
moneys  of  the  city,  a  contribution  of  one  per  cent  of  the 
salary  of  all  tlie  teachers,  but  no  contribution  shall  be 
for  more  than  $30  for  a  teacher  and  more  than  $40 
for  a  supervising  officer.  The  fund  also  receives  the 
deductions  which  are  made  from  the  teachers'  salaries 
because  of  absence.  In  round  figures,  the  income  of 
the  New  York  fund  is  about  $850,000,  made  up  of 
some  $300,000  for  deductions  because  of  absence, 
about  the  same  amount  from  five  per  cent  of  the  excise 
taxes,  and  nearly  or  quite  $250,000  in  contributions 
from  members.  Any  unexpended  balance  from  any 
year's  income  may  be  at  the  end  of  the  year  transferred 
to  the  permanent  funds.  Any  part  of  the  permanent 
funds  in  excess  of  $800,000  may  be  drawn  upon  in 
case  of  need  to  pay  the  annuities  of  a  current  year. 


RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS.  199 

This  arrangement  assures  a  permanent  fund  of  at  least 
$800,000.  The  New  York  retirement  fund  has  at 
present  a  permanent  fund  of  above  a  million  dollars. 

Under  the  New  York  plan  teachers  may  receive  half 
pay,  but  no  full  annuity  shall  be  for  less  than  $600. 
The  maximum  annuity  shall  be  $1,500,  except  for 
supervising  officers,  who  may  receive  as  high  as  $2,- 
ooo.  The  total  number  of  annuitants  on  February  1st, 
1909  was  1,033.  This  was  over  five  per  cent  of  the 
total  employment  roll  of  the  department  of  instruction 
of  the  city.  Those  having  to  do  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  New  York  plan  express  the  opinion  that 
they  have  not  yet  their  full  complement  of  annuitants, 
that  about  eight  per  cent  of  a  teaching  force  may  be 
considered  as  the  normal  number  who  will  be  on  re- 
tirement when  a  retirement  arrangement  is  in  full 
effect. 

From  the  foregoing  it  will  be  seen  that  there  are  vari- 
ous forms  of  old-age  relief  for  teachers.  Broadly,  we 
might  distinguish  between  pensions  and  retiring  allow- 
ances, the  former  being  given  outright  without  contri- 
bution on  the  part  of  the  beneficiaries  and  without 
their  participation  in  the  management.  A  much  more 
common  and  more  desirable  form  of  relief  is  a  co- 
operative enterprise  between  the  teachers  and  the  com- 
munity. Both  are  the  gainers,  and  both  may  by  rights 
be  asked  to  make  contributions.  Both  should  also 
participate  in  the  management.  The  participation  of 
the  teachers  as  a  class  in  the  contributions  and  ad- 
ministration makes  for  the  solidarity  of  the  teachers 


200  RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS. 

as  a  class  and  gives  them  interest  and  confidence  in  a 
retirement  fund  plan.  If  the  community  makes  all 
the  contribution,  the  danger  is  that  the  pension  will  be 
looked  upon  as  a  charity,  or  a  dole.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  entire  contribution  and  management  by 
teachers  imposes  a  burden  too  heavy  and  the  arrange- 
ment is  one-sided.  An  association  for  retirement 
among  teachers  alone  cannot  well  be  made  compulsory 
as  to  membership,  and  it  is  almost  sure  to  fail  sooner 
or  later.  It  is  only  when  an  organization  of  teachers 
cooperates  with  the  government  that  the  elements 
necessary  to  success  are  brought  into  relation. 

The  forms  of  teachers'  retirement  funds  are  various 
and  altogether  the  results  of  the  several  experiments 
are  inconclusive,  but  the  laws  and  plans  are  being 
amended  and  perfected.  Insurance  experience  and 
tables  of  life-expectancy  have  furnished  valuable  data. 
Some  of  the  funds  have  accumulated  a  considerable 
surplus.  Then,  as  a  result  of  the  compulsory  feature, 
they  have  an  assured  and  increasing  membership.  The 
prospects  for  several  of  the  funds  seem  most  encour- 
aging. 

Retirement  funds  have  made  more  attractive  the 
calling  of  the  teacher.  Where  introduced  they  have 
dignified  and  ennobled  the  teacher's  work;  they  have 
given  to  teachers  independence  and  self  esteem  which 
could  not  otherwise  have  been  secured.  Not  only  is 
there,  as  a  result  of  these  funds,  the  community  con- 
sciousness of  having  dealt  justly  by  the  teachers,  but 
there  is  also  the  certainty  of  having  given  to  the  chil- 


RETIREMENT  FUNDS  FOR  TEACHERS.  201 

dren  their  due  in  not  keeping  in  the  schools  teachers 
who  are  incapacitated  for  efficient  service.  Thus  in 
every  way  there  is  gain  as  a  result  of  the  existence  of 
retirement  funds  for  teachers,  and  their  wide  adoption 
is  an  evidence  that  their  worth  is  being  generally  rec- 
ognized. 


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